Striptease at New Gotham

Fascinated by burlesque with its public display of sex and nudity, Reginald Marsh made it a frequent subject of his art. Although trained in academic technique, which stressed the idealized human form, he liked to depict the female nude as encountered in real-life settings such as the ornate interiors of burlesque theaters. In  Striptease at New Gotham, the naked strip tease artist is posed as a modern-day Venus on display for the admiring scrutiny of male spectators, themselves fully dressed in business suits. Instead of exploiting the situation's potential for lecherous leering, however, Marsh accentuates the humanity of the male audience-members who have paid for the pleasure of watching a show performed by a naked woman.

Marsh made prints of scenes in numerous New York City's burlesque theaters, identified in his titles and by his careful detailing of their elaborate interiors. In this work, the lavish surface decoration of the balconies and the edge of the proscenium arch around the stage set off the white nakedness of the woman, clad only in fashionable high-heel shoes. One hand to her right breast and the other covering her pubic area, she assumes the pose of the so-called Venus Pudica, the traditional representation of the modest Venus, the ancient goddess of love found in Greco-Roman sculptural representations with which Marsh evidently was familiar. Like George Bellows's earlier Nude Girl, Miss Leslie Hall (TF 1999.5), Marsh's Striptease at New Gotham downplays the erotic allure of female nudity to explore the nature of spectatorship and bodily display.

Marsh developed this particular etching over a series of six states before he deemed the image on the etched plate finished. This rare impression is of the third state. After examining it, Marsh decided to add lines of further shading on the stage floor, the pillar behind the nude, and the faces and suit lapels of the men in the front row.

Collection Cameo companion piece, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, August 1999.

(Re)Presenting Women, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 16, 2001–January 13, 2002.

The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940 (Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains 1840–1940), Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 15–May 25, 2003; Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, June 8–August 17, 2003. [exh. cat.]

Le Temps des loisirs : peintures américaines (At Leisure: American Paintings), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, April 1–October 31, 2008.

Sasowsky, Norman. Reginald Marsh: Etchings, Engravings, Lithographs. New York: Praeger, 1956.

Sasowsky, Norman. The Prints of Reginald Marsh. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1976. No. 156, pp. 193–94.

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. The People Work: American Perspectives, 1840–1940. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 10, 24, 29 (checklist); fig. 3, p. 10 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. Le Travail à l'oeuvre: les artistes américains, 1840–1940. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2003. Text pp. 10, 24, 29 (checklist); fig. 3. p. 10 (black & white). [specific reference to Terra print]