Seated Nude

Artist Kiki Smith (American, born 1954)

Date2005

DimensionsOverall: 66 15/16 × 18 1/8 × 14 15/16 in. (170 × 46 × 38 cm)
Base: 38 3/16 × 18 1/8 × 14 15/16 in. (97 × 46 × 38 cm)
Figure: 44 1/8 × 13 3/8 × 17 11/16 in.

MediumBronze with silver nitrate patina on painted wood base

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Florence Scott Libbey Bequest in Memory of her Father, Maurice A. Scott

Object number

2018.18

Not on View

Label Text"I think I chose the body as a subject, not consciously, but because it is the form we all share; which we all know from our own experience." Kiki Smith has been known since the 1980s for her multidisciplinary practice relating to the human condition and the natural world. Seated Nude is part of the art historical tradition of the female nude, but Smith approaches it in a decidedly untraditional way. The figure, with her oversized head and seemingly boneless limbs, has a psychological presence as palpable as her physical form. This work, and others in which Smith explores the female body and its lived experience, extends from Smith’s conviction that the human body is universal and shared by all. As she states, "it's something that everybody has their own authentic experience with." Smith aims to bring the viewer to a moment of self-examination, to explore the relationship between the self and the body.