On Modeling in the Nude

My dear old friend Vincent, whom I’ve known since 1987, recently shared something surprising with me. He confided that he had modeled in the nude for a female art student. Then, despite my saying I didn’t want to see it, he shared the painting with me. 

As far as nudes go, this one was quirky and fun. I liked what the artist had done, and I didn’t mind viewing the work as much as I thought I would. However, there’s something uncomfortable about seeing an image of a friend I’ve known for nearly forty years in the nude.

Because my friend did it, I briefly wondered if I also would dare to bare all for art's sake. Mercifully, I instantly realized that this scenario would never, ever happen.

The nude in question

And while I had not exactly cringed over seeing a simulacrum of my old friend in the nude, I did find it to push boundaries to the very limit.

It turns out that Vinnie in the buff was a bluff. The student had indeed painted a nude likeness of him, but it was from her imagination, not a modeling session.

I felt relieved when he told me that he also could not imagine himself modeling nude. Vincent lives in New York City, and I had begun to wonder if I had become a Midwestern prude.

The famous nude that once
hung in my office

There are several nudes in Joe’s and my art collection at home. In the early 1990s, when I worked at Random House, I had a print of a tasteful nude by the photographer Ruth Bernhard in my office. An editor even came into my office and commented, “Isn’t that one of the great nudes?” How times have changed!

I like to push the proverbial envelope and to make conservative sensibilities just a tad uncomfortable.

But I am and always will be a connoisseur of nudes, not a model for them.

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