Naked Body Parts Indeed!
I found this painting at a church rummage sale a few years back. I spotted her across the room, and snagged her for $50. It’s not clear to me how the work was painted, though the wonderful frame was clearly created for it. It is not dated or signed, but i would guess it was done in the 1950s. The paint is thick , creating a raised outline of her body. While the figure is unclothed, the artist created an impression of her body without obvious detail. Our eyes recognize it is of a naked woman, but the beauty of it is in its simplicity. Every time I see her I recall a time when I took children on a field trip to the Art Institute in Chicago.
In 2000 I, with a team of women, created an elementary school volunteer art program we called Famous Artists. The premise was to introduce students to well know artwork with a hands-on art project in the artist’s style. One of the highlights was a 5th grade class field trip to the Art Institute, where many of the works we introduced over the years were hanging (Lichtenstein, Monet, Mondrian, Moore, O’Keefe, Picasso, Renoir, Seurat, Van Gogh, Warhol, Wood).
Even when my children were not in the 5th grade, I would participate as I enjoyed the trips. It was interesting to see the varied reactions from the students – some could care less and others were very engaged. Some docents were inspiring, others boring as all heck. One year my group got stuck with a docent in training, and the woman refused to deviate from her assigned “little children” talk. The 5th graders were bored, and as soon as possible I extricated us from her tour.
At that point there was time left to explore and I asked what the students wanted to do. A group was interested in going to see the Thorne Miniatures (amazing detailed houses). Another group, all boys actually, asked if I would tour them around the museum to see works we had not seen on our childish tour. In a prior year, I had been with a group of students where the girls in the group were remarkably squeamish (and vocal) about seeing art with naked imagery (something that is hard to avoid in a large museum). And so, I asked this group of boys how they felt about “naked body parts”. Hmmm, they replied, naked body parts? Yes, I said, I would be happy to walk around with them and discuss art, but I was not keen on hearing silly comments about art with naked bodies. Well, they decided, that was absolutely fine, and off we went on probably my most memorable tour with students! We had a ball, they were remarkably curious (not about body parts) and we got to see the art they had studied.
And so, this piece always makes me chuckle – naked body parts indeed!