Even in the rarefied world of fine art, clichés often hold true.
For instance, the notion of the painter or sculptor in his or her studio, feverishly working, shaping, carving, drawing, with a model striking a specific pose—cliché or no cliché, that very scenario is still one of the realities of making art. The human body, after all, has long been the principal, singular form from which so many artists draw inspiration.
From the very first, LIFE magazine celebrated not only artists and their creations, but their process: drawing, sketching, sculpting, painting and all the other ways that the truly creative among us develop and bring into being their vision of what is, or perhaps what should be. Here, then, a gallery of photographs that pay tribute to the artist at work, and the simple, beautiful, living human form that so often serves as the artist’s most enduringly reliable muse.
American artist Robert Rauschenberg (1925 - 2008) employs a nude model, huge sheets of photographic paper, flowers, leaves, and a sun lamp to create a new work in 1951. A master painter, sculptor, and printmaker, Rauschenberg is perhaps best-known for the painting-sculpture "combines" he created in the 1950s, which remain among the most influential artworks of the 20th century.Wallace Kirkland—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesA large group of Farnsworth Art School students paint a nude model in 1946. The Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, is one of the Northeast's great cultural treasures, with America's second-largest collection of works by the great sculptor Louise Nevelson and hundreds of works by Andrew, N.C., and Jamie Wyeth.Andreas Feininger—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesThe American painter Thomas Hart Benton (1889 - 1975) works on his painting "Persephone" (also known as "The Rape of Persephone") in his classroom-studio at the Kansas City Art Institute, Kansas City, Missouri, in 1939. His model is one of his students; other students nearby also paint from the same model. Benton's painting, including the work he did as a leader of the anti-modern "Regionalism" movement of the '20 and '30s, was heavily influenced by El Greco — an influence that can be readily seen in the beautifully fluid, almost sculptural forms he created on canvas.Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesThomas Hart Benton at work on his painting, "The Rape of Persephone." Benton published an autobiography in the late 1930s that was praised by none other than the Nobel Prize-winning American novelist Sinclair Lewis, who wrote, "Here's a rare thing — a painter who can write."Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesSkowhegan School of Art students in Maine sketch a nude model in 1948, two years after the now-renowned residency program was founded. "Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed," the poet William Blake once wrote.Eliot Elisofon—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesJean Negulesco (1900 - 1993) paints a portrait of a nude model in his Hollywood studio. The Romanian-born artist is known today as a major Hollywood screenwriter and director of the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, working on classic films like Johnny Belinda, How to Marry a Millionaire and many others. But painting was his first love, and he pursued it his whole life.Jerry Cooke—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesMoses Soyer (1899 - 1974) paints a portrait of a woman in his Greenwich Village studio in 1960. The Russian-born, Bronx-raised Soyer was a realist painter for his entire career, bucking the trends of the day — particularly the juggernaut of abstract expression — to focus on social matters and, increasingly, the female form.Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesArtist David Fredenthal (1914 - 1958) sketches a model in 1948. Fredenthal's work frequently appeared in LIFE — most notably the powerful drawings he made during World War II while working as an artist/correspondent for the magazine in both the European and Pacific theaters.Gjon Mili—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesGerman surrealist Fabius von Gugel (1910 - 2000) sketches a nude outdoors against a backdrop in Rome.Jack Birns—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesModel Doris Fischer takes a smoke break at the 100-year-old Art Institute of Chicago-affiliated school and colony in Ox-Bow, Michigan, in 1946.Loomis Dean—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesStudents at the University of Iowa draw from a nude model in 1961.Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesSculptor Chaim Gross (1904 - 1991) works with a pair of models in his studio in 1942. Born in Austria, Gross moved to the U.S. in 1921, and eventually became one of the country's most celebrated sculptors in wood.Eliot Elisofon—Time Life Pictures/Getty ImagesArtists paint a nude model outdoors in Big Sur, California, in 1959.J. R. Eyerman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesA nude model avoids cacti as an arthritis patient paints her in the American Southwest in 1948.Alfred Eisenstaedt—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesStudents sketch a female nude model during life drawing class at the Skowhegan School of the Arts in 1948.Gjon Mili—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesA painter prepares a billboard for the 1958 Ava Gardner film, The Naked Maja.Bill Bridges—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesSculptor Chaim Gross sketches a nude model in 1942.Eliot Elisofon—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesA nude model poses for artist Fletcher Martin in 1940. Like David Fredenthal, the Colorado-born Martin — who was once a professional boxer — served as a war correspondent-illustrator for LIFE during WWII.Peter Stackpole—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesA self-portrait by the Italian painter Giorgio de Chirico (1888 - 1978). "That de Chirico was a poet, and a great one, is not in dispute," the critic Robert Hughes once wrote — and, as with so many of Hughes' pronouncements about art, he was dead-on.Nat Farbman—Time & Life Pictures/Getty ImagesHenri Matisse (1869 - 1954) sculpts a nude female figure while sitting in bed in his apartment in 1951.Dmitri Kessel—Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
