The Artist’s Model
To admit to writing about artists’ models is to set off an avalanche of interest. ”Didn’t Rossetti marry his model? Didn’t Augustus John sleep with all of his?” At first I brushed such questions aside as frivolous. Instead of revealing the facts about modelling in England from the foundation of the Royal Academy to the present day, the gossip column approach to art history seemed to veil them. But as research revealed the mundane business of a model’s life, I had second thoughts about my high-minded approach. I became fascinated by the way that contrary to the facts that were emerging, the majority of model anecdotes shared a common obsession – sex – and a common assumption – that models are female. I started to wonder how posing for artists, a tiring, tedious and lowly-paid profession practised by both sexes and all ages, could have become so fascinating to the public mind and also so distorted.Modelling is a misunderstood activity in which myth and reality are far apart. My first book, published by Routledge and Kegan Paul in 1987, it reappeared in 2010 under the Faber Finds label.
‘The first chapter of Frances Borzello’s book, The Artist’s Model, is entitled Fact and Fantasy. The facts are dull. Modelling is a boring, tiring, badly paid profession. Yet out of them we have created an image of a woman dressed only for seduction who probably sleeps with the artist, cooks for him, and inspires his best work. Rossetti has his beloved Lizzie Siddall, Whistler had his Maud, Augustus John . . . well Augustus had whoever he could, whenever he could.’ Waldemar Januszczak, Guardian