Section 04
Painters Now
Painters who kept the figure while the argument moved on — what they changed and what they held.
Figure painting hung at a size that refuses a comfortable viewing distance. — Jenny Saville Paints at a Size That Makes the Subject Impossible to Look Away From.
Photo: Polina Chistyakova / Pexels- 01
Jenny Saville Paints at a Size That Makes the Subject Impossible to Look Away From
Saville's large-format figure paintings — Propped (1992), Plan (1993) — their dimensions, the physical relationship between canvas and viewer they force, and where Saville's practice sits against the tradition of the monumental nude. Factual record from Gagosian and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.
- 02
Kerry James Marshall Made the Figure Black Because the Tradition Had Not
Marshall's argument — stated in interviews and made visible in the paintings — that the figure in Western art history carries an unstated default, and what his Mastry series (2016, MCA Chicago) does with that. Covers specific canvases by title and holding institution.
- 03
Alice Neel Painted People Who Did Not Come Out Looking Good
Neel's figure portraits from the 1930s through the 1970s — Andy Warhol (1970, Whitney), the pregnant nudes, the late self-portrait — and the specific way she handled unflattering likeness as a formal strategy rather than a failure of sympathy.
- 04
Philip Pearlstein Cropped the Head and the Problem Got Easier
Pearlstein's method — two adult models in studio light, cropped by the frame, no narrative — and what the deliberate removal of the face does to the tradition of the figure in Western painting. Covers his practice from the 1960s and the argument he made for it in his own writing.
- 05
Joan Semmel Painted the Body from Inside It
Semmel's intimacy paintings from 1973 onward — the foreshortened self-view, the first-person perspective applied to the nude — and how the series differs structurally from the tradition of the reclining nude it works against. Covers the artist's published statements on the project.
