Seated Male Nude

Seated Male Nude

Daniel Huntington

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The leading portraitist in New York during the post-Civil War period--and president of the National Academy of Design from 1862 to 1870 and from 1877 to 1890--Daniel Huntington was a conservative painter, a man highly respected by his clients and colleagues throughout his long career. Although he traveled widely and frequently during the mid- and late nineteenth century, he shunned new artistic concepts and styles. As a staunch academician in technique and manner, Huntington understood that proper draftsmanship was at the core of accomplished painting. His extant drawings number over a thousand, and the vast majority are from his early career, although he continued sketching as long as he lived. The present drawing is a student exercise from a class Huntington took at the National Academy in 1838. It displays proficiency in modeling and highlighting and a commendable grasp of human anatomy and foreshortening that he would have learned from drawing statuary before advancing to life studies.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

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The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.