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May. 8th, 2023 09:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kradeelav
John Koch (1909-1978) The Sculptor, 1964.
“Ernest Ulmer posed for Koch’s “most self-revealing painting”, The Sculptor (1964, oil on canvas, 80” x 59 7/8", Brooklyn Museum). Its original title was Prometheus, the god who stole fire from Mount Olympus. A full-length standing male nude seen from behind, Ulmer towers over the seated Koch and holds a cigarette lighter at hip level, while the artist leans in to get a light. The lighter illuminates Koch’s face and its flame is vividly reflected in his glasses, “a sexually loaded reference to Prometheus’s gift of fire to mankind”.
As punishment for the theft of fire, Zeus chained Prometheus to a rock and sent an eagle each day to tear out his liver. Koch was an occasional sculptor, and modeled Prometheus and Hercules, a work depicting Hercules wrestling with the eagle to rescue the chained Prometheus. A large version of this appears in the background of The Sculptor, and Ulmer may have posed for the sculpture as well as the painting.“ (source: wikipedia)
