The San Francisco call., 1895-07-28
A SCARCITY OF MODELS.
How the Art Institute Pro-
cures Its Life-Class
Subjects.
Fine Athletes Can Be Induced TO
Pose When They Are
Broke.

The Art Institute has decided to employ
three models day when the school re-
opens in August, and J. A. Davis, collector
for the association, is already casting about
to supply the threatened demand for hui
man beings capable of posing in manner
to delight the artistic eye.
Hitherto when the school has wanted
models the collector has generally gone
out into the highways and byways and
brought them in. This requires consider
able tact, as even in the interest of art it is
not permitted in this land of liberty to lay
forcible hands on any man, and promising
subjects are often wont to repudiate with
scorn overtures made to them to pose.
"The fact is that there are no regular
models in San Francisco" said the collec-
tor yesterday, speaking of his model-hunt-
ing expeditions. Occasionally one will
come here from New York, but he never
stays long, for up to the present there has
not been enough regular employment.
When there is professional model In town
you can generally reach him through the
Art Students League, but If they do not
know of any one there go the round of
the employment offices and the cheap
| lodging-houses.
"The first thing is to choose your model
|
| ing him if he wants work. You can never
| tell Just what will please artists. l have
| had considerable experience, but some
times I go to Mr.. Mathews and say: I
have had to bring you fellow to-day who
is not much to look at And the whole
| class will rave over him. At other times
| tell them I have found fine model, and
! the artists cannot find any beauty in him
at ALL What they like best is muscular
| fellow, who is strong and able to pose with
out getting tired. A prize-hghter or boxer
/ makes beautiful model, and sometimes L
pick up fine athletes broke round the
cheap lodging-houses on Barbary Coast"
The employment Offices are the most
| fruitful field in which to look for Lfe-class
! subjects, according to Mr.. Davis. II go
around till find some plcturesque-looklng
fellow, and asks him if he wants work.
His eyes generally bulge out of his head
with eagerness at the word work, and he
asks what kind. After have described it
| he will gasp and be ready to faint. Some
times he takes me for a bunko-steerer. l
remember one ragged fellow who did not
| look as if he had so cents in the world
saying: Il know your little game; you
want to get me somewheres to rob me-.
"'If there is any one here you are ac-
quainted with, bring him along an
swered. The man was hard up for work,
and he did bring a companion along. You
should have seen their surprise when they
were brought up here. There was no diff
Guilty about posing then, and the man
worked as a model for the school on and
off all winter.
| Sometimes people take it as deadly
| insult if you ask them to pose. There was
an old fellow with wooden leg who had a
| little fruitstand at one of the corners on
Kearny street. When | was hard up for
subject for the portrait class 1 asked him
how work was, as preliminary to getting
| him up to the school. He said times were
pretty bad with him and he would be glad
| enough to get something to do. With that
encouragement I unfolded my scheme,
and the old fellow nearly choked with in
dignation. He was pretty low down, he
said, but had not yet sunk to getting
took for living.
quite job. The class does not want the
same subject all the time, and when a
model quits work here there is not much
other posing open to him. l have only
known one man make money at it, and
he went to New York as soon as he had
laid something by"
| According to present rates men are paid
| 81 so for single pose and 81 80 for two
poses. Female models, on account of the
difficulty of procuring them, are paid So
| for single pose. 1t would require too
much tact and delicacy to bring in lady
athletes as the men are secured, from
highways and byways, so women
possessed OF the necessary strength for
posing are secured by advertisement.
! The increased employment proposed by
the Art Institute will certainly give a
boom to posing, and before long a few
regular professional models will find it
worth their while to reside permanently in
San Francisco.