Striking a Pose: A Handy Guide to the Male Nude

Join award-winning illustrator Anita Kunz and Director of American Illustration and American Photography (AI-AP) Mark Heflin as they discuss Kunz’s new book Striking a Pose: A Handy Guide to the Male Nude. 

Inspired by her own art students’ struggles and triumphs with nude life drawing, Anita Kunz turned her brushes to nearly 150 speculative portraits of famous figures, stripped of their vanities and as unpretentiously posed as life models. Alone or grouped, male marvels and monsters and musicians stand, lean and sit for the imaginary eye of the acclaimed painter and illustrator.

Less directly comic or polemical than her previous Another History Of Art (Fantagraphics, 2021) Striking a Pose nevertheless includes a feminist flip on the role of the nude model, Kunz upends historical gender prejudices within the fine art world while also finding a welcoming humor in the bathos of the naked body.

Books will be available for purchase in the SI Museum Shop for a signing after the talk.

$15 general, $10 members, $7 students and seniors

Photograph courtesy of Anita Kunz

For forty years, Anita Kunz has worked as an illustrator and artist who has been published all over the world. Her uncle Robert Kunz, whose slogan was “Art for Education,” had a significant early influence on her. 

Her editorial work frequently addresses political structures and issues of social justice, reflecting her concern for the human condition. She contributed frequently to Rolling Stone magazine and produced cover art for a wide range of publications, including The New Yorker, Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times. Her particular painting technique fuses aspects of realism and surrealism to produce thought-provoking images that challenge our social perception. 

Kunz recently published two books that explore gender politics: Original Sisters, Portraits of Tenacity and Courage, which features portraits of women, many of whom have been marginalized or forgotten, and Another History of Art, which is a satirical examination of art history with a secular female twist. Additionally, she has given numerous lectures in diverse locales including India and Istanbul. She has been named an Officer of the Order of Canada and received two honorary doctorates. She has experience working closely with monkeys and is an animal advocate. She has one human, four pets, and a home in Toronto.

Mark Heflin is the Executive Director of ICON The Illustration Conference, having served since 2009. Prior to this appointment, he was on the board of directors for ICON5 in New York in 2008. Heflin is also the Director of American Illustration and American Photography (AI-AP). Mark is a proud volunteer at God’s Love We Deliver in New York and sings with the Empire City Men’s Chorus.