Sweet and Sour Spectator

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

But this wasn't the end of the quest, it was just the beginning. The model for the Star Maiden was the most famous model and muse from the glory days of public art in the United States. Her name was Audrey Munson. Born in Rochester, New York in 1891, she and her mother moved to New York City in 1906 after her parents divorced. There she was discovered by photographer Ralph Draper.

“Mother and I were walking downtown shopping. A man kept following me and annoying me, not by anything he said but by looking at me.... finally Mother stopped, turned to him and asked him what he wanted. He explained... that he was a photographer and said my face was one he longed to photograph. He asked mother if she would not bring me to his studio.... We went; he took many pictures. Then he called one day and asked if he might show them to an artist friend.... the artist then asked me to pose, and that was the beginning.”

Her first job as a nude model (at the age of fifteen) was posing for Konti's Three Graces which became the centerpiece of the lobby of the Hotel Astor.

With that, her modeling career was off, along with her clothes. Her face and figure show up in hundreds of works over the next ten years including —to name just a few in New York City— Civic Fame atop the Municipal Building, Miss America in front of the Bowling Green Customs House, Peace atop the Madison Square Court House, Beauty in front of the New York Public Library, and Pomona, the lady in the fountain, in front of the Plaza Hotel at the corner of Central Park.

She also was the model for the Mercury Dime, and the Walking Liberty Half-dollar. Her figure and popularity allowed her to build a substantial career. Bringing our story back to San Francisco, she was chosen by Calder as the leading model for the sculpture at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, and ended up posing for seventy-five percent of all the female-figure works at the Exposition!

She became a celebrity and is quoted in newspaper interviews opining on covering the body, "Clothes we began to wear only when guile and evil thoughts entered our heads... . They do harm to our bodies and worse to our souls," and the evils of exercise: "You can't be both athletic and beautiful!" she advised. "Eschew all athletic exercises!"

Her fame and "exposure" led to a short career in film where she became the first to appear nude in a widely distributed film. Her initial film, Inspiration, depicted poses from famous works of art, which was a good way of getting around the censors who feared they would have to close all of the museums if they banned her film. Of course, even in a silent film, she had no acting ability, and after four films her Hollywood career was over.

She moved back to the east coast, but by 1919, the Beaux Arts movement was in serious decline along with her modeling career. She was living with her mother in a NYC boarding house owned by Dr. Walter Wilkins. Wilkins was smitten with Audrey, and in a melodramatic attempt to make himself eligible, he murdered his wife. It turned out that Audrey and her mother had left NYC at the behest of Mrs. Wilkins prior to this event and had nothing to do with it. However, there was a nationwide hunt for Audrey and her mother followed breathlessly in the newspapers of the day. The negative publicity further damaged her job prospects. By the early 1920's, with no work to be found, Audrey and her mother returned to Syracuse, New York.

Audrey began showing signs of mental instability and in 1931 at the age of 39, she was committed to a psychiatric facility where she remained, largely forgotten, for 65 years until she died in 1996 at the astounding age of 104, proving that lack of exercise will not shorten your life.

She was buried in an unmarked grave next to her mother in the Munson plot.

More information on Audrey Munson and the hundreds of works of art she inspired can be found at the following links:

More information on 1915 Pan-Pacific International Exposition
Blog highlighting NYC works featuring Munson
Audrey Munson Wikipedia Article

There is a Star Maiden in a sculpture gallery of the Oakland Museum of California, and a bronze replica to scale in the lobby of the Citibank Building at 1 Sansome Street in San Francisco. Neither one, alas, is equiped with Novagems.