TitleSketch of standing female nude and of woman's head
Artist
Kenyon Cox
(American, 1856 - 1919)
Datepre-1890
MediumPen and ink
DimensionsSheet size: 16 3/4 × 10 7/8 in.
SignedSigned in graphite at lower left: "drawing by Kenyon Cox before 1890"
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1981.130
Label TextUpon entering the atelier of Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1879, Cox began to gain a sure understanding of the human body - its structure and proportions. He would soon master the skill of making an académie, a drawing or painting after the nude model, posed according to prevailing ideals of the noble and classic. Throughout his career Cox would acknowledge the importance of studying the nude as a foundation for representing the human figure. This drawing was probably created in the course of working out the elements for one of his later compositions, which he usually initiated with free, loosely drawn studies on a small scale.
