Leonardo's Lady
Leonardo's Lady, 1975
Audrey Flack (American, born 1931)
#1985.0011.0005
Contemporary artist Audrey Flack is well known as one of the first Photorealist painters. Her work functions as a self-aware pastiche of kitschy pop culture themes and classical allusions. A student of Josef Albers, Flack received her BFA from Yale University in 1952, and was awarded an honorary degree from Cooper Union. Flack’s early works were in an Abstract Expressionist mode, but she later became interested in Photorealism, becoming one of the pioneering artists in the genre. Flack has the distinction of being the only Photorealist artist whose work is represented in the collections of New York’s four major museums.
Leonardo’s Lady is an intimate view of a dressing table littered with feminine toiletries, pink champagne, dewy fruit and a nude putto. The star of this carefully constructed scene is a woman, a postcard of La Belle Ferronière. Painted by Leonardo da Vinci between 1490-1496, the woman is often identified as Lucrezia Crivelli, mistress of Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan. The narrative of Flack’s composition, with its hyper-textural surfaces and pronounced highlights, evokes 17th-century Dutch vanitas or Baroque trompe-l'œil paintings. Implied as well for the viewer are multiple layers of interpretation and meaning.
