Click image below for more "still life"

Click image below for more "still life"
Francis Cunningham "Three Baldwin Apples" (1964) Oil on linen 5'' x 16''

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Online Exhibition: Francis Cunningham "Male Nude"

This entry idea began with perke's brainstorm for Francis Cunningham's participation in a planned exhibition of four figure painters of the nude at Westbeth in 2011.  Having just posted the entry on the consequences of showing the life-sized painting of Patrick (1973-75) at a New York gallery in 1975, perke suggested that the next show including any nudes might best consist of all male nudes in order to see what the response will be 35 years later to the life-sized male nude.
No decision has yet been made about what will be shown, so we're bringing the nudes from the last several decades together in chronological order for an impromptu online show.

We think the selection of these life-sized male nudes should best be viewed live, but until we have them hanging in a gallery together, we can only indicate the paintings' scale by giving the dimensions.

To paraphrase the Guerrilla Girls, "Do Men have to clothed to enter a gallery?"


To answer to the statistics in the poster by the Guerrilla Girls, yes, Francis Cunningham is a man, but his nudes are equally distributed between the sexes. Please see more on the institutional critique of the Guerrilla Girls on the Brooklyn Museum site here.

See more variety of subjects in human figure category on Francis Cunningham website here.


Patrick (1973-75)
oil on linen
80'' x 44''

Stephen (1983)
oil on linen
60" x 56"

Jeff (with skull) (1985)
oil on linen
66'' x 58''

Tom at Umpachenee Falls (1988)
oil on linen
68" x 84"

In the Woods - Tom Johnson (1988-93)
oil on linen
87'' x 101''

Reaching-Peter (1994-96)
oil on linen
72'' x 48''

On the Beach Tom Johnson (1997)
oil on linen
55" x 70"

Man Walking (1999)
oil on linen
72" x 36"

Resurrection (1999-02)
oil on linen
80'' x 43''

Ramon (2003-04)
oil on linen
105" x 48"

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