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Lake Annecy, Upper Savoy September 1913 SM1310 Costume Nude with hands covering the breasts and a hand over the crotch. TMLB or TMLBAP? Actions A nude young maiden stands ankle-deep at the shores of a large natural lake (1, 2). The skinny-dipper clenches herself in the "icy morning waters," partly covering her breasts and her pelvis with hands and arms (3). Commentary "September Morn" becomes famous as the result of a censorship action. It is completed in 1912 by Frenchman Paul Chabas, exhibited, and shipped to America for sale. As a sentimental oil painting, it is virtually unnoticed by the public until it it catches the eye of Anthony Comstock, head of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Comstock demands the gallery remove the painting from its window display and the press falls upon the ensuing struggle feeding a frenzy of denouncers and defenders--and a crowd outside. Instantly the painting is pirated and released as a calender--in fact "September Morn" is the first nude pin-up calendar to be published in the United States. And needless to say, the repression makes this innocent one a huge success. Source Paul Chabas, "September Morn" ("Matinee de Septembre"), oil painting, 1912.1913 and after reproduced in America in hundreds of thousands of calendars, window display cards, postcards, posters, cigar wrappers, candy boxes, bottle openers, and even suspenders. Original currently at Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The head is painted from a drawing of a young American girl, Julie Phillips (later Mrs. Thompson), sketched in a Paris cafe; the body of the modest maiden is an unnamed local farm girl. The wide shots are collected from the Internet and show some capture interpretations; the detail is from Mark Gabor, The Pin-up, Universe Books, Crown Publishers, 381 Park Ave. South, New York 10016, 1972, p. 22. See also Bonnie Bull, "The September Morn Story," Flower Frog Gazette, bullworks.net/ffg/sptmrn/sptmrn.html, 2006. 3 pictures. |
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