The naked body is one of the oldest subjects in the history of art. The human figure, when stripped of its clothes and portrayed in its most vulnerable state, maintains its fascination today as it did at the beginning of representation. Throughout his career, Cunningham produced hundreds of drawings of nude figures, ranging from rough preparatory sketches to highly detailed, delicate representation of eroticised bodies.

A volatile figuration, always subjected to movement and change, naked bodies remains today challenging, even confrontational images. Nude bodies force viewers to closely analyse them, engendering questions of self-identity and power relations. The body, in general, make us reflect about what objective truths can be communicated through human anatomy.

The notion that drawing nude figures constitutes a crucial step for artistic education was originally established as a didactic tool in the Renaissance and survives to this day. Through this process young artists would learn to understand how lighting and perspective function by observing and rendering real, moving forms.

The importance of nude figures in the realm of art history has been solidified by the influential book The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form (1956) by Kenneth Clark. In the first chapter the famed critic made the fundamental distinction between naked and nude bodies, ascribing to the first ideas of shame and embarrassment and to the latter the status of neutral, dignified artistic product. In the second half of the 20th century, the influential painter Lucian Freud, part of the same London Group whose members were particularly impressed with Cunningham’s production, became famous for his naked portraits that reproduced individuals without any element of idealisation. Arresting and disquieting for their unrelenting realism, these images strikingly recall some of Cunningham’s images of curvy, naked women. Both experiments testify to a different interest to the body in art, one that is less concerned with societal connotations and more with the possibility of replicating and construct mass in two-dimensional representations.

Cunningham’s hundreds of mostly female, often plump and non-traditionally attractive bodies are usually portrayed in forceful corporeal performances. Openly presenting their figures to viewers, dancing, handling snakes, even walking on stilts, these bodies convey not only energetic dynamism but also a quality of vulnerability which is heightened by their medium. Drawn in pen or pencil on small pieces of paper, their forms emerging through short, quick ink strokes, these diminutive figures seem to move in front of the viewer’s eyes. In some cases, the images themselves dissolve into a faintly visible cluster of thin black lines, almost as if they were shying away from their scrutiny or suggesting the human figure without fully representing it. In others, they candidly and sometimes erotically submit themselves to the viewers’ vision.

Variously perceived as tactless, grotesque and offensive, or as artistic exploration of humanity, the meanings of these images entirely depend on the context of their perception. Some figures might appear commodified, plain and obscene, while others seem playful and imaginative, musing over their dynamic potentials rather than their sensuality.

The images belonging to this series all confront, in different ways, the viewer’s assumptions about corporeality and sexuality, by producing discomfort and anxiety but also fascination and admiration for the artist’s skills. These naked bodies, intent in frenzied dances and theatrical performances, attempt to balance the realism of their forms with the abstracted modes through which their movements are conveyed.