A group exhibition titled ‘The Nakeds’ exploring nude drawings of the human body is featured at the Drawing Room, in London, this Autumn. The naked body is frequently the physical terrain artists traverse in search of the inner self. How to represent love, shame, solitude and sexual yearning? Drawing from the self or life model, from reproduction or the imagination, has provided artists with the freedom to explore desires, fears and fantasies.
The Nakeds takes as its starting point selected drawings of the single figure by Egon Schiele. From here it considers work by artists from the post-war period to the present day. The exhibition will included new work made specifically by Enrico David, Stewart Helm, Chantal Joffe and Nicola Tyson.
Other featured artists include: David Austen, Fiona Banner, Joseph Beuys, Louise Bourgeois, Paul McCarthy, George Condo, Enrico David, Marlene Dumas, Tracey Emin, Leon Golub, Stewart Helm, Chantal Joffe, Maria Lassnig, Chris Ofili, Carol Rama, Egon Schiele, Nancy Spero, Georgina Starr, Alina Szapocznikow, Rosemarie Trockel, Nicola Tyson, Andy Warhol and Franz West.
The Austrian artist Egon Schiele (1890 – 1918) was a prolific and provocative draughtsman. His drawings of the body unclothed or in a state of undress are amongst the most arresting works to have emerged from Vienna in the tumultuous years around the First World War. Working at the same time as Sigmund Freud, in the birthplace of modern psychiatry, the artist was attacked and acclaimed in his short lifetime. Still dividing opinion today, his drawings tested long-held distinctions between the ‘nude’ and the ‘naked’, art and pornography. The exhibition seeks to explore this contested terrain.
An illustrated catalogue and public programme of events will accompany the exhibition, more details to be announced at a later date join our mailing list to be kept up-to-date.
The Nakeds has been curated by Drawing Room in collaboration with artist David Austen and art historian Gemma Blackshaw.
Drawing Room thank the School of Humanities, Music and the Performing Arts, and ‘Innovation for the Creative and Cultural Industries’, Plymouth University for their support of the catalogue and contribution to Gemma Blackshaw’s research. We thank the Polish Cultural Institute and Paulina Latham, Head of Events and Visual Arts, for their support of the inclusion of the work of Alina Sczapochnikow. We thank our Patrons Miel de Botton, Brian Boylan and Veronique Park for their generous and vital support.
Image Left to Right: Joseph Beuys, Stewart Helm, George Condo