Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1883-02-14
NRw YORK ARrIRrs' MODELS.
Who They Are, Why They Pose and How
They Are Utilized-ROmance and Re-
ality of Studio Life
Charlotte Adams IN Fe6ruary Cent


of model he has only to send to the
Academy of Design or the Art Students
League, on the books of which profession
al models are registered. The academy
has a list of some thirty models who pose
for the nude figure as well as in costume.
There are others who pose only for the
draped figure. The average fee is fifty
cents an hour. This is increased or les
Sened according to circumstances,
such as special contract with the
artist or class, or the varying de-
mand for the model. Among these pro-
fessional models are few who have been
trained to their occupation from child
hood These are chiefly foreign or of for
eign parentage. One family in particu-
lar, of mixed German and italian blood,
furnishes models of various ages and both
sexes. This family serves as standby
through all the yicissitudes of the model
market, and as models are constantly in
creasing in numbers, it is fair to suppose
that, with this nucleus, before many years
have passed trained and skilled models
Will be as easily procured in New York
as IN Paris.
The models of New York may properly
be classed as a part of the floating pOpu-
latiOn. Every few seasons a new set of
faces appear at the studio doors in search
~Of employment. Most of these applicants
are persons out of work, who take this
means of bridging over a gulf of cOnse-
quent impecuniosity. In New York city
many trades and professions have their
dull seasons, and at such times many
able and willing men and women are left
stranded on the shore of literal starva-
ton. Instincts send them to the studios.
Most artists have known the discipline of
poverty, and unless success has hope
lesSly imbedded them in seltishness they
keep a warm corner of their hearts for
these waits blown by adverse winds
to their studio doors. 1t is difficult to
| believe that the sturdy realism of New
York life should offer such suggestions of
romance as are presented by the process
sion of models which, in the course of
| winter, passes in review before the eyes of
the artists. Most of them, especially the
female models pose under fictitious
| names. They come no one KNOWS whence.
and vanish when necessity no longer de-
mands that they shall exc out a livelihood
IN tins precariOus fashion. The tragedy
which treads upon the heels of comedy in
the great city's life, finds pitiful
| eXemplicatiOn in the brief summing
up of the list of female models
on the academy's books. ''Mar-
ried women, whose husbands cannot sup
port them, or women unable even to pro-
cure other employment" Many of them
are educated and refined. One adds to
the small income derived from copying
law papers by the opportunities given her
to pose in the academy. Another case
cited was that of young lady, who, haV-
ing married a foreigner of position, dis
covered that he had wife in his own
country. Left penniless by her husband
and friends, she supported herself by
posing. a touching episode is offered tn
the case of an English actress vino went
out to Canada with her husband in search
of professional employment. The husband
fell i'll and died, leaving the wife unprO-
yided, and a child to support. Unable
to procure an engagement at Il time
when the financial depression of the
country affected theatrical matters, and
having found her way to New York, she
became a model attached to the academy
1t often happens that a pretty face looks
down from the wall in New York spring
exhibition, of which only this is known
that its owner, passing under an assumed
name, applied to the studio for employ
ment, and, after earning the money she
needed, carried her beauty and her reti-
cence back into the Obscurity they came
from, leaving the artist who had perpetu-
ated the one and respected the other to
speculate upon her identity, and perhaps,
at some later day, to meet her in an en-
tirely different sphere of life-a rounded
arm or throat, a tapering hand, a head of
curling golden hair, having temporarily
fed and clothed many young woman. |
When the genius shall be born who Will
reconcile the opposing elements of
New York life in fiction, as BalZac |
did those of Paris, it would |
not be strange if he should find |
some magnificent type of heroine in some |
anonymous beauty of the New York stu |
dos. Many of the professional female |
models have become such because they |
found they could earn better living by |
posing than by working in shops, book |
binderies, factories, in domestic service or |
at the needle. know of a French model |
who supports herself and a relative COM |
fOrtably by posing. She formerly gave |
lessons in languages, and barely managed |
to exist. Another model, who is noted |
for her stately presence and superb ply |
sique. is greatly in demand, and COM |
mands So a day. But the average fee of a /
model is 30 cents an hour, when the en-
gagement is made by the hour, or 81 a day /
when the engagement is made by the day |
For a morning or afternoon session, |
whether of two or three hours, the model |
receives only 81, unless there is a special |
agreement to pay more.
A few artists in New York have their |
models acting also as dOmesticS or studio |
retainers. This is a foreign custom i'm
ported by artists who have received their
schooling abroad. Under these circum-
stances a sort of cOmradeship arises be-
tween the artist and his favOrite model,
which has its pathetic as well as its gro
tesque side, since the remuneration of the
model is apt to depend upon the success
or failures of the artist. There is a colony
of young artists in New York, which pos
sesses retainer known to the world as
sammy youth of muscular type.
with blonde moustache and hair and Il /
fresh complexion. His face and figure fit |
him for all spheres of model life. One day |
he poses as a stalwart fisherman, in a |
pea jacket, disreputable hat and high |
sea-bOOts. Another week, in a dress |
borrowed for the occasion, he figures |
as a ball room gallant, with one arm en- |
circling the waist of a lay figure, arrayed |
in silken robes, likewise borrowed, into |
whose glass eyes he gaZes with an eN-
preston of deepest tenderness. He has |
even appeared as bold hOrSeman seated |
astride of a wooden chair placed on n
table, tightly clutching two pieces of
clothes line for reins, with his body in |
clined at the angle necessary to imply
furious galloping on the part of his fiery
steed, and his cOat-tails spread out and |
fastened to the walls behind, to illustrate
the action of the wind. In addition to his
accomplishments as a model, this young
man does everything an artists bench
man car be expected to do in the line of
general usefulness.
The useful and prOtean lay figure should
not be fOrgOtten-that model, who, amid
all the changes of artist life, remains ever
true to its master. In one studio it lies
upon a couch, clothed in spotless draperies
of unbleached cotton, as an early Christian
bearing the palm of martyrdOm. In an
other it appears as a young woman of
fashion attired in Partisan costume,
seated at an imaginary piano with gloves
over its sawdust fingers, striking inau-
dible chords, and gazing into space with
an inspired air. In another it is seen as
bold brave of mixed nationality, wrapped
in a heavy cloak, with a Turkish fez over
one eye, and the rosy badness of his head
concealed by flowing wig.
Then comes in the question of costume.
A model may be everything, personally,
that is desirable, and yet not possess tn e
costume required by the artist. Some
times his model makes a gown to fit
herself of some common, inexpensive
fabric, say, for instance, blue silesia. BY
that mysterious and convenient agency
known as chic it will appear on the walls
of the exhibition as the richest of blue satin.
The artist buys half a yard of blue satin
and studies the effects of the folds, then APP
plies the same combination of light and
shade to the silesia gown on his model
The properties and methods of the studio