David Hare and VVV
Seated Nude
1937-1942
Scroll
Physical Qualities
Gelatin silver print (toned) from an altered negative, Mount: 455 × 356 mm. (17 15/16 × 14 in.)
Image/Sheet: 305 × 248 mm. (12 × 9 3/4 in.)
Framed: 26 1/4 × 20 1/4 × 2 in. (66.7 × 51.4 × 5.1 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of Saidie A. May
Object Number
1948.54.6
Seated Nude epitomizes David Hare’s early work in experimental photography, before he became well-known as a sculptor and later, a painter. By melting select areas of his negative—a process Hare liked because he could not completely control the results—the artist optically assaulted the nude’s body. Hare was influenced by several European
Surrealist artists who immigrated to the United States before and during World War II. His Seated Nude was one of twelve works on paper—and the only photograph—to be issued
in a portfolio in 1942 to fund the publication of the American Surrealist journal VVV.
Saidie A. May, Baltimore
Surrealism USA
Looking through the Lens: Photography 1900-1960
The Renoir Returns
Eric M. Zafran, "Impressionism to Surrealism from The Baltimore Museum of Art. Selections from the Collection of Claribel and Etta Cone, Saidie Adler May, and Blanche Adler," Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 2002.
Greeley, Robin Adele, Samantha Kavky, Oliver Shell, and Oliver Tostmann. "Monsters & Myths: Surrealism and War in the 1930s and 1940s." New York, NY: Rizzoli Electa in association with The Baltimore Museum of Art and Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 2018, ill.
Sawin, Martica; Surrealism in Exile and the Beginning of the New York School, MIT Press, c. 1995, pp. 190-193. Illust. Breton, Carrington, Motherwell. Kaplan, Gilbert (ed.); Surrealist Prints, Harry N. Abrams, Inc.; c. 1997 Atlantis, p.96. Lippard, Lucy R.(ed.); Surrealists on Art; Prentice Hall, Inc. Englewood Cliffs NJ, c. 1970.
Inscribed: RECTO: LRE(ink): [artist signature] 'David Hare'; MOUNT VERSO: BC (graphite): '48.164 Gift of Saidie A. May'
