The history of American art is filled with little-known human stories that I find generally more fascinating than much of the art. Today, I’m thinking about a young artists’ model, Audrey Munson, whose mercurial rise to fame was as unlikely as her despairing descent into the black void of the rest of her life. At the golden dawn of the 20th Century, Audrey Munson, an impoverished pre-teenager, caught the eye of photographer Felix Benedict Herzog as she pressed her face against a department store window and soon thereafter became the most famous artists’ model in American history.
Off the Cuff: The Human behind the Art, Manhattan’s Mercurial Muse Audrey Munson
