Saluting the Nude – Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

Gustave Klumpp was born in 1902 in Baiersbronn, in the Black Forest region of Germany and died in New York City in 1974. In 1966, two years after his retirement as a compositor and Linotype operator, Klumpp visited Brooklyn’s Red Hook Senior Center seeking activities and companionship to fill his days. The director suggested that he join the art group and try his hand at painting. His first work was a portrait of Abraham Lincoln. His next works were landscapes. Soon he began to develop his fantasies into paintings. In 1972, bachelor Klumpp wrote, "My philosophy of art painting which is expressed in the visualization of painting beautiful girls in the nude or semi-nude and in fictitious surroundings including some other paintings of dream like nature."

This work’s flattened perspective and focus on the nude are typical of Klumpp; more unusual is the formal, museum setting and the portrayal of nudes not as direct subjects but as paintings within a painting. Here he steps back to depict the relationship among artist, artwork, and viewer by including the copyist on the left and an appreciative audience in the gallery.