Nude

In the second half of the twentieth century, Pop art dramatically reconfigured aesthetic approaches to the nude. As exemplified in the work of Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselmann, and Roy Lichtenstein, artists began to glean imagery from glossy magazines and the graphic arts. Warhol’s Walking Torso (1977) forgoes centuries of traditional practice for commercial silkscreen processes in order to repeat images mechanically, introducing incremental shifts that evoke cinematic sequencing. In David Hockney’s The Room Tarzana (1967), dramatic tension is built where graphic blues and greens make up a flat, static image of a bare-bottomed boy lying face-down on a bed in a brightly lit room.

With Lucian Freud’s Night Portrait (1977–78) and Jenny Saville’s Trace (1993–94), the dense tactility of oil paint effects the sensation of flesh, together with its enigmas, troubles, and desires. Willem de Kooning’s Untitled (c. 1966) is a typically expressionist homage to the abundance and sensuality of the female body. These corporeal qualities link contemporary painters to the innovations of their Renaissance forebears. While Jeff Koons’s porcelain sculpture Naked (1988) depicts a cloyingly precious moment between a young boy and girl—a gift-shop Adam and Eve—John Currin’s Nude with Raised Arms (1998) contains echoes of contorted Mannerist bodies, inflected with a newly sardonic eroticism.

The persistent impulse to depict the human body is present at every juncture in art history. In Gagosien’s ongoing series of diverse and engaging group shows, such as Go Figure (2009), Crash (2010), The Show Is Over (2013), and In the Studio (2015), Nude: From Modigliani to Currin is a lively and varied exploration, from the late nineteenth century into the present, of the limitless ways in which the human body is both the subject and means of artistic endeavor.

Featuring works by Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Louise Bourgeois, Glenn Brown, Paul Cézanne, John Currin, Willem de Kooning, Marcel Duchamp, Lucian Freud, Alberto Giacometti, David Hockney, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Yves Klein, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, René Magritte, Aristide Maillol, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Edvard Munch, Takashi Murakami, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Richard Prince, Charles Ray, Jenny Saville, Egon Schiele, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann.