Nudes (Nus)

Manolo (Manuel Martínez Hugué)

1891

A woodcut by Manolo that reduces two reclining nudes to bold, interlocking volumes, using stark black-and-white to convey sculptural mass and intimate presence.

The eye is immediately caught by thick, curving outlines and dense black shapes that render the bodies as weighty, rhythmic forms set against a lively, patterned ground.

Dating from 1891, the print links late-19th-century interests in primitivism and sculpture to emerging modernist simplifications of the figure, showing how printmaking could translate three-dimensional concerns into powerful two-dimensional designs.

Palette

Art Terms

Woodcut Relief print Print Figurative Figure/ground relationship Monochrome Primitive art

Exhibitions

The Nude: Thirty 20th-Century Drawings

1970

Some American Prints, 1949–50, from the Museum Collection

1951

New Spanish Painting and Sculpture

1960

Naked/Nude: Contemporary Prints

1986