Painting: The Great American Nude

Manhattan Pop Artist Tom Wesselmann, 37, is an artist who believes that the female nude is a subject to which an artist can devote his full attention. To prove his thesis, Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art has put on view 23 ot Wesselmann's pictures dedicated to 'the Great American Nude." Accompanying them are five of the pristine assemblages of kitchen and/or bathroom objects that Wesselmann creates to evoke the "typical American home" in which the G.A.N. is presumably found.

Wesselmann is nothing if not thorough, and the show's inventory includes: 36 painted toenails, 13 breasts, eleven legs and eight pairs of lips; he adds for good measure six oranges, three cigarettes, two radios, two pop bottles, one toilet seat, one hero sandwich, one glass of milk, one Volkswagen and one lemon. Altogether, the lot amply illustrates that, as Director Jan van der Marck observes, "Wesselmann shows woman as the consumer, both consuming and being consumed."

But if he presents her as a consumer product, he does so with considerable tenderness, and over the years Wesselmann has tended to move even closer to his subject. Early paintings depict her in full. Later (often shaped) canvases zero in on specific portions of the anatomy: feet that rise like mountains above the seashore, mouths dragging at enormous cigarettes, huge breast. Yet, explicit though the images are, Wesselmann's nudes are not pornographic. They are too remote for that, too glazed, too impersonal. They could be legendary divorcees, airline stewardesses or Candys who spend all lay on the beach and all night in a motel room. It is hard to imagine them arguing over the household bills, or dropping the children off at the dentist.