Accession Number
36193
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
182.9 × 182.9 cm (72 × 72 in.)
Classification
Painting
Credit Line
Twentieth-Century Purchase Fund
Background & Context
Background Story
Philip Pearlstein's Man and Female Nude Leaning on a Chair shows two figures in an interior with Pearlstein's characteristic objectivity. The models are posed without idealization, their bodies rendered with careful attention to anatomy and the play of light.
Cultural Impact
Pearlstein's realist nudes challenged the dominance of abstraction in post-war American art.
Why It Matters
This painting treats the human figure with objective honesty.
