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"I find sometimes I get so excited working, especially when starting new ideas; I get so excited that I get uncomfortable. It almost feels dangerous, like I'm flirting with something dangerous." Tom Wesselmann

"Wesselmann's series Great American Nude (begun 1961), which first brought him attention in the art world, was inspired by a dream he had concerning America and the phrase "red, white and blue." The series incorporated representational images of nudes with patriotic themes and symbols." (Swann Galleries)
Tom Wesselmann in his studio at 175 Bleecker Street, New York, with Great American Nude #21 (1961, in progress). Photography by John Goodman, 1961.

"The Great American Nude series express the imagery and charged emotion that characterized Post-War America, establishing Wesselmann as a master of color and collage, whose deft manipulation of art historical and contemporary symbols heralded the robust reign of Pop. The reclining Pop goddess would indeed repeatedly reincarnate herself throughout Wesselmann's career, reigning as both his signature subject and a star in the constellation of Pop." (Sothebys.com) 

Tom Wesselmann was an American Pop artist best known for his collages, sculptures, and screenprints that stylized the female figure. Often isolating segments of the body—red lips with a cigarette, a single nipple, or a stylish shoe—his artworks aim was to seize a viewer’s attention. 'The prime mission of my art, in the beginning, and continuing still, is to make figurative art as exciting as abstract art,' he once said of his work. Born 1931 in Cincinnati, OH, he was drafted into the US Army to serve in the Korean War in 1952. Returning home after the war, he studied drawing at the Art Academy of Cincinnati before working as an illustrator of comic strips and men’s magazines. In 1956, he moved to New York where he attended the Cooper Union. Soon after graduation, Wesselmann founded the Judson Gallery, along with Jim Dine and Marcus Ratliff. Beginning in the 1960s, with his Great American Nude series, Wesselman drew from Americana and media culture, to produce billboard-scaled paintings in flat bold colors. Like Dine, he was associated with the Pop Art movement but disagreed with being labeled as such. Through the following decades, the artist honed his idiosyncratic style while continuing to live in New York, NY until his death in 2004. Today, the artist’s works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others. (artnet.com)