Wednesday 10 March 2010

‘September Morn’ - Paul Chabas

“Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed.”
- William Blake

 

septembermorn_big

This particular naked beauty, September Morn (“Matinee de Septembre”) by French painter Paul Chabas, caused such a scandal in the States in 1913 that prints of it sold in the millions –- and not just prints, but calendars, postcards, candy boxes, cigar bands, cigarette flannels, pennants, suspenders, bottle openers, and more --  making it one of the most famous and popular paintings of the twentieth century. 

The full story of the success du scandal is told here.

1 comment:

Jeffrey Perren said...

One of my all-time favorites for many, many years. Thanks for the reminder.

(Nice jpg of it, too. The colors are not far off the original, if I recall correctly.)