In honor of its own label depicting a female nude called “Pearl,” Imagine Wine and Art Gallery invited renowned Chicago artist Bruce Mondschain to show his famous nude female photography at the winery. Mondschain’s photos celebrate the female form with photos that are provocative, eye-catching, and stunningly beautiful.
Mondschain’s photos make excellent use of color, movement, and light and shadows to extol the beauty of the human form.
“I start with a vision, and my goal is to bring the model into that
vision. Whether it is motion, dance, lethargic, sleepy, bucolic, I want the model to own a piece of that vision,” he said.
To that end, Mondschain communicates with the model in a collaborative way. The process takes advantage of Mondschain’s photography skills and artistic eye, and the model’s own talents.
“It’s in my mind, but very often a model will say to me ‘I’ve studied ballet for 15 years’ or ‘I horseback ride’ or ‘I’m a gymnast,’” he said. “For example, there is a piece I have at Imagine, her name is Anna and she’s a 6-foot-1 Ukranian with the most athletic moves of anyone I’ve ever seen in the world. So I thought, given what I know about light and shadow, how do I maximize what she can do physically?”
In color, black and white, or tones of sepia, Mondschain’s models dance, leap, twist, bend, and stretch. Alternately, some sit wrapped in quiet contemplation.
Capturing the beauty of the female form from a male perspective isn’t as significant as why Mondschain chooses to photograph women instead of men.
“I think the female body is beautiful. What differs is culturally, we define male body beauty by muscle tone. For females there are so many other variables for beauty: curvature, textures, in terms of lights and darkness. We go from photographing the waif—you know the Twiggy model at 106 pounds—to Ruebenesque females, and we define all of those shapes as beauty,” Mondschain said. “We’re looking for each of those elements, then the beauty is the interplay between all of those elements.”
Mondschain is often commissioned for work by women in their 50s and 60s who want a beautiful nude-but-draped type piece as an empowering statement of the beauty of being a woman at any age. Mondschain said he feels a great responsibility to capture that for all the models he photographs.
“I take it very seriously. You know it’s a different world than that of our grandparents,” he said.
In fact, he’s working on another project to reveal the beauty in the female form in all its states by photographing women who have had mastectomies because of breast cancer.
Mondschain has studied with the well-known photographers Louise Potter Weinberg, Ronald Anthony, and, most recently, Art Ketchum. His photographic studies of Greece, Alaska, the Middle East, and Poland, and in-depth investigations of figure work, Native American pageantry, “Inspiration Café,” “mud circus” life, tattoo culture, and elective body augmentation have been exhibited at Echo Gallery, The Renaissance Theater, Hyatt Corporation and Gallery Placik.
His portraits of renowned folk singer Pete Seeger at the singer’s Beacon, N.Y., home caught the eye of the Folkways division of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., which acquired five of the images for reproduction in books and publications for its archival collection. The Smithsonian also has obtained several of Mondschain’s images of Bruce Springsteen, Dave Mathews, John Mellencamp, Joan Baez, Arlo Guthrie, Tom Chapin, Tom Paxton, Emmylou Harris, and others.
A recent reception at Imagine Wine and Art Gallery to open his local show drew an impressive crowd of attendees. Mondschain said that in a time when the country is struggling with freedom and art, he appreciates the efforts of Imagine Wine owners Ross and Lyn Rankin for supporting and energizing his body of work and providing a venue. Art patrons appreciate it, too.
“There was a woman I met there, a tri-athlete, and she said to me, ‘Does it get any better than this? Sitting here sipping wonderful wines produced by the Rankins, and enjoying the beauty of the female form?’” Mondschain said.
Arts Editor Shelly Cone can be contacted at scone@santamariasun.com
This article appears in Jul 14-21, 2011.
