Tom Wesselmann: The Great American Nude

Tom Wesselmann: The Great American Nude is the first comprehensive publication dedicated to the artist’s most famous body of work, made between 1961 and 1973.

Edited by Susan Davidson, the monograph is the first comprehensive publication dedicated to Wesselmann’s most famous body of work, the Great American Nudes (1961-73), which combines sensual depictions of the female figure with references to art history and popular culture. The book will include full-color reproductions of each artwork in the series (totaling one hundred numbered works, plus proofs, and all color variations for editioned works), as well as related drawings, studies, and relevant works from associated series.

Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004) was one of the leading American Pop artists of the 1960s. Departing from Abstract Expressionism, he went on to explore classical representations of the nude, still life, and landscape, while incorporating everyday objects and advertising ephemera.

Art historian and curator Susan Davidson is an authority in the fields of Surrealism, Abstract Expressionism, and Pop art, with special expertise in the work of Robert Rauschenberg. She has been engaged with Rauschenberg’s practice since 1990, serving as a curatorial advisor to the artist from 2001 until his death in 2008, and as a board member to the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation from 2009 until 2014. Her numerous exhibitions and publications on the artist include Rauschenberg in China (Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing, 2016); Robert Rauschenberg: Photographs 1949-1965 (Schirmer/Mosel, 2011); Robert Rauschenberg: Gluts (Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice, 2009); Rauschenberg: On and Off the Wall (Musée d’Art Moderne et d’Art Contemporain, Nice, France, 2005); Robert Rauschenberg (Institut València d’Art Modern Centre Julio González, Valencia, Spain, 2005); and Rauschenberg (Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara, Italy, 2004). With Walter Hopps, she curated the definitive Robert Rauschenberg: A Retrospective for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York and subsequent international tour (1997-99), and was assistant curator on Hopps’s seminal Robert Rauschenberg: The Early 1950s at the Menil Collection, Houston (1991).

In her previous role as Senior Curator at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2002-17), Davidson oversaw the stewardship of the institution’s collection in addition to organizing notable exhibitions that include Jackson Pollock: Exploring Alchemy (2017); Robert Motherwell: The Early Collages (2014); John Chamberlain: Choices (2012); No Limits, Just Edges: Jackson Pollock’s Paintings on Paper (2005); and Peggy and Kiesler: The Collector and the Visionary (2004). Prior to joining the Guggenheim’s constellation of museums, Davidson was Collections Curator at the Menil Collection, Houston (1985-2002). She holds advanced degrees in art history from the Courtauld Institute, London, and George Washington University, Washington, DC.

​Rachel Middleman is professor of Art History at California State University, Chico. She teaches courses in modern, contemporary, and American art history. She recently participated in the Smithsonian Archives of American Art’s Samuel H. Kress Teaching Fellowship for undergraduate teaching with primary sources. Middleman has a PhD in art history with a Certificate in Visual Studies from the University of Southern California and a master’s degree in Modern Art History, Theory, and Criticism from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Middleman is the author of Radical Eroticism: Women, Art, and Sex in the 1960s (University of California Press, 2018). She has published in Art Journal, Les Cahiers du Musée National d’Art Moderne, Konsthistorisk tidskrift, and Woman’s Art Journal and contributed to edited volumes and exhibition catalogues, including Academics, Artists, and Museums: 21st-Century Partnerships (2018); Enchanted Modernities: Theosophy, the Arts, and the American West (2019); In the Cut: The Male Body in Feminist Art (2019); Women, Aging, and Art: A Crosscultural Anthology (2021); Joan Semmel: Skin in the Game (2021); and Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art (2021). She is executor of artist Anita Steckel’s estate and coedited a special section of Art Journal titled ＂The Politics of Legacy＂ on the topic of artists’ estates and art history. She cocurated Anita Steckel: The Feminist Art of Sexual Politics at Stanford Art Gallery (2022).

Lauren Mahony is a director in the publications department at Gagosian, where she has worked since 2012 on exhibitions and publications devoted to Willem de Kooning, Helen Frankenthaler, Brice Marden, and David Reed, among others. She was previously a curatorial assistant in the department of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York.