ART-TRIBUTE:The Artist…the Muse…and the Obsessions II

The artist in the past when the model was necessary both in painting and photography had his own model-muse. Their relationship evolved from love and passion to marriage. Every photographer and artist had his Muse and his Obsessions.

By Dimitris Lempesis

Felix Nadar had as model and muse the French actress Sara Bernard, she was referred to as “The most famous actress the world has ever known”. Around 1884, the French sculptor and graphic artist Camille Claudel started working in Rodin’s workshop. Claudel became a source of inspiration, his model, his confidante and lover. She never lived with Rodin, who was reluctant to end his 20-year relationship with Rose Beuret. Man Ray had as Models-Muses and mistresses except the famous photographer Lee Miller, the French artist’s model, nightclub singer, actress, memoirist, and painter Alice Ernestine Prin known as Kiki de Montparnasse and the surrealist artist Méret Oppenheim. Renne Perl in 1930, met the French photographer Jacques-Henri Lartigue while strolling in a Parisian street. Nicknaming her the “Parasol” as she was slightly hidden by her elegant accessory, he immediately fell in love with the striking dark beauty and both began a passionate relationship that would last two years. The Greek photographer Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidar AKA Nelly’s, shocked the prudish Athenian society, with the photos of Mona Paiva, dancing inside the Parthenon. “Seductive Girl” is a majestic and monumental Pop tribute to art history’s most enduring subject: the female nude. It represents Roy Lichtenstein’s triumphal return to the comic heroines of the 1960s, which had defined him as one of the major painters of the twentieth century. This beguiling playmate, rendered in the Lichtenstein’s bold signature style, belongs to a series of larger-than-life Nudes that were instigated in 1993 and curtailed by the artist’s death in 1997. Marina Abramovic uses herself as model, like Mariko Mori or Tracey Emin who transmutes pain into art, while Jeff Koons an entire period experiences his love with Ilona Stalner in front of the audience, in contrast to Vanessa Beecroft, who highlighting the way in which the female body is used in art, she makes performances with professional models.