Seated Nude and a Foot

Art Historical Context

Arthur B. Davies created this intimate drawing, *Seated Nude and a Foot*, around 192 using black and white chalk on warm brown laid paper. The medium, fixed with a water bath, allowed the artist to achieve soft tonal transitions and a velvety texture while ensuring the delicate lines would endure. At roughly 13 by 12 inches, the work invites close viewing, revealing Davies’s sensitive handling of the human form. The composition focuses on a seated figure with careful attention to one extended foot, highlighting anatomical detail and graceful contour. Such studies reflect the early twentieth-century interest in figure drawing as both technical exercise and expressive exploration. Now part of the National Gallery of Art’s collection through the John Davis Hatch bequest, the drawing offers visitors a quiet glimpse into Davies’s working process and the enduring appeal of classical subjects rendered with modernist sensitivity.

About the Artist

Arthur B. Davies · 1862–1928

Arthur Bowen Davies (1862–1928) occupies one of the most paradoxical positions in American art history: a painter whose own canvases were lyrical, dreamlike, and rooted in the classical tradition, yet whose organizational energy and curatorial vision helped force American audiences into direct confrontation with the European avant-garde. Born on 26 September 1862 in Utica, New York, to English and...