STANDARDS
Core Art Standards: VA1, VA7, VA10
CCSS: R1, R2, R10
Need a Subject? Find a Friend!
The artists featured here used friends as models—you can too
Édouard Manet (1832-1883), The Barge (Claude Monet with his wife in his floating studio), 1874. Oil on canvas. bpk Bildagentur/Art Resource, NY.
Where do you think Manet was when he painted this scene showing Monet?
Are you hoping to practice figure drawing? Don’t have a model? Don’t worry—you can always ask a friend. You certainly wouldn’t be the first artist to do so. Artists throughout history have used people they know as subjects. And sometimes those subjects turn out to be famous artists too!
In the Same Boat
It’s easy to mix up Impressionists Édouard Manet and Claude Monet; though the French artists have similar last names, their work is visually distinct. The two were also friends. In his 1874 The Barge (Claude Monet with his wife in his floating studio), above, Manet captured Monet painting in his boat in France. If you look closely, you can see that Monet is painting a landscape, the genre for which he is best known.
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), Vincent van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, 1888. Oil on canvas. VCG Wilson/ Corbis via Getty Images.
Why is it important that Gauguin included sunflowers in this portrait of Van Gogh?
Frenemies
Post-Impressionist painters Paul Gauguin and Vincent van Gogh had a much rockier friendship. In 1888, the French Gauguin and Dutch Van Gogh spent a few months living together in the French town of Arles. During that time, Gauguin painted his pal in Vincent van Gogh Painting Sunflowers, above. Like Manet, Gauguin depicts Van Gogh painting one of his favorite subjects. However, their stay in Arles ended dramatically, with Van Gogh famously cutting off part of his own ear. The two artists never saw each other again.
Ansel Adams (1902-1984), Georgia O’Keeffe Holding Bones, 1937. Gelatin silver print. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Santa Fe/Art Resource, NY.
Why do you believe Adams chose to photograph O’Keeffe in the desert?
No Bones About It
Photographer Ansel Adams and painter Georgia O’Keeffe became friends in 1929. The friendship between the 20th-century American artists developed from their shared love of nature. They often explored the outdoors together. Adams’s 1937 photograph Georgia O’Keeffe Holding Bones, above, shows O’Keeffe standing in the desert landscape that she so often painted, and she holds animal bones, a subject she also included in her own work.
