Are Life Models Artists (or Mercenary Drawing Instruments?):

An Experiential Analysis

© Dominic Blake 2016–22

Paper for presentation at ‘Revaluing the Life Model in Art Practice’ Symposium

Aesthetics Research Centre, The University of Kent, 7 May 2022

Abstract

The role of the life model is inextricably linked with the Western academic traditions of fine art associated with the emergence of the art academies during the Renaissance, popularised in the 17th and 18th centuries by the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture in Paris and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The academies have become the filters via which the life model is interpreted and understood, shaping contemporary attitudes and giving rise to cultural paradigms suggesting that models are servants, or mercenary drawing instruments. By extension, life models have been thought of as muses, providing the inspiration for artists to create their work via their emotional engagement. However, life modelling is a complex, skilled practice, models fulfilling myriad roles beyond those defined by these paradigms. Given the determining factors of motivation and context, modelling might itself become a physical mode of artistic practice within which the model uses their body as their medium to create works of art within the realm of performance art or contemporary dance. These self-choreographed or spontaneous artistic acts may occur either in creative symbiosis with other artists, or beyond the studio / life room environment in alternate contexts including museum and gallery settings. Differing contexts may foster new perceptual frameworks of understanding on the part of the viewer; removed from previous paradigmatic shackles, the models artistry may be unambiguously revealed.

INTRODUCTION

EXPERIENTIAL UNDERPINNING: MOTIVATION

Klaus Biesenbach, director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, said of Xu Zhen’s 2019 installation at MOCA, In Just a Blink of an Eye: “It visualizes that performance art is both sculpture and life…it’s a living sculpture in its multiplicity, in variations.” [1] Echoing Biesenbach’s sentiments, Jo Baring, director of the Ingram Collection, feels in relation to the life model that “[the role] doesn’t have to be restricted to one compartment, it is many and varied and within particular contexts may be considered to be a form of performance art, a living sculpture.” [2]

Between 2015 and the summer of 2019 I worked full-time as a professional life model for almost every art school, museum, gallery and life drawing group in London, and privately with a number of artists including Royal Academicians and members of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters. During this period, and borne in particular out of my experiences working at the Royal Academy of Arts (RA), I formulated the theories mentioned within this paper which I wrote about and discussed in a lecture series, ‘Are Life Models Artists?’ at institutions including The National Gallery, Royal College of Art and Mall Galleries, among others. ‘Are Life Models Artists?’ is an ongoing enquiry; the seismic impact of the pandemic has fundamentally altered the calculus upon which our understanding of the life model is based.

My initial motivation for life modelling was specific, to create ephemeral works of art using my body as my medium of expression in symbiosis with the other artists who assembled to draw, paint and sculpt me. Direct emotional responses to the environments I located myself within, the people I shared them with and to my body itself, a kind of self-portraiture. The forms I created would exist only as long as I was able to maintain them physically, beyond which time they manifested as fragments of memories or more permanent records on paper, canvas, on in clay.

I viewed modelling as a physical mode of artistic practice within the realm of performance art or contemporary dance. [3] Although not a dancer, inspired by the work of Yvonne Rainer, David

Hammons, Joan Jonas and others, I used my body to draw in space in the same way a painter might use oils to draw onto their canvas. The life room dictated stillness, modelling becoming a meditative reflection on time and space. However, my practice was physically and emotionally demanding, the forms I created often pushing my endurance to its limits.

Simultaneous with my work in the life room, I began creating a series of videographic installations, also grounded in my body, which I curated via Instagram and exhibited at The Crypt Gallery, London in 2021. Although distinct from one another contextually (I created my videographic work alone outside the studio environment, moving slowly), I perceived my body of work as a life model and a videographic performance artist to be a unified whole.

Sympathetic with Biesenbach and Baring’s later statements, I came to view my work as a form of living sculpture. Not in the literal sense that Gilbert and George would refer to their own practice decades earlier, according to which every waking action was intrinsically artistic, [4] rather as being particular to those moments within which I took conscious decisions to use my body to create new forms, spontaneous or premeditated, in the life room or beyond.

EXISTENTIAL AND PRACTICAL PROBLEMS: THE ART SCHOOL

On arriving in the art school, however, it quickly became apparent that models, unlike dancers, were not often viewed as artists, rather as practitioners of anatomical data entry; choreographed contrapposto ‘poses’ prescribed by tutors to serve the exacting scholarly or aesthetic requirements of their students. Further, the model was directly associated with the muse, a source of inspiration for an artist to create their work via their emotional engagement.

Although under no illusion that every context within which the life model located their practice engendered artistry on their part (or that it would necessarily be appropriate for that to be the case, the anatomy class for instance), the sense that the model functioned to serve other practices rather than being, as a minimum, a creative collaborator, was disheartening.

This was often also the case even within contexts in which the model improvised their poses, therefore theoretically assuming some level of artistic autonomy. The life room seemed to filter the perceptions of those artists who assembled to draw within it, suggesting a hierarchical power structure according to which the model was akin to a cast, and within this perceptual framework their potential artistry was rendered invisible.

I harboured no antagonism toward the anatomy or portrait class, nor toward the often-moving artist / muse relationship. They were specific dynamics requiring particular skill on the part of the model, and I inhabited all of them. It was my belief, however, that to define modelling merely through these filters was myopic, resulting in deep-rooted stereotypes out of which emerged profound existential and practical problems:

1. Objectification and perceptual barriers

While the objectification of the life model within the anatomy class could only be viewed dispassionately and not negatively (the model serving a functional role as a drawing instrument providing a frame of reference for the musculoskeletal systems, reduced on paper to a series of lines, curves and crosshatched zones), the anatomy class came to be emblematic of the models wider purpose according to the hierarchical power structure I perceived. The model was reduced to a passive, unskilled automaton, a ubiquitous, mercenary drawing instrument or manikin.

2. Linguistic barriers

(a) Whereas the term artist suggested an individual skilled in one of the fine arts (drawing, painting or sculpture), the term model was not imbued with the same creative potential, rather distinct from it (hence ‘the artist / model relationship’).

(b) Further, the terms muse and model were seemingly interchangeable / identical. This was deeply problematic; while models might be muses, a more accurate analysis could be realised when considering a ‘spectrum of creativity’ within which the roles would be located at opposite ends. In fact, the roles could more sensibly be considered distinct from one another in most situations: the notion of the muse inspiring an artist to create their work through their emotional engagement was confused with the physical mode of artistic expression the life model embodied through their practice.

(c) By extension, the term sitter fostered the impression of passivity. Were life models through their practice ‘sitting’ for the artists who assembled to draw, paint or sculpt them, or more actively engaged within artistic collaborations? While more appropriately employed as a descriptor within the artist / muse relationship, or of the portrait model within an art class, the sitter was distinct from the life model.

(d) Finally, the term pose suggested servitude, reinforcing the hierarchical power structure, and was anathema to my initial motivation for becoming a life model. I replaced it with form; I was not ‘posing’ for anyone, rather creating (abstract) forms in symbiosis with my surroundings and the people I shared them with. Describing

the act of creating forms as performing felt more coherent; modelling could then be understood as a category of performance art.

Given these linguistic and perceptual problems, I felt that it made more sense to refer to life models as somatic, or body artists, unambiguously asserting their artistic potential and skill.

3. Remunerative issues

Confirmation of the existential attitudes mentioned above could powerfully be located when considering the rates of pay art schools awarded life models. London based art schools almost universally employed life models on very low hourly rates within the £9-£14 range, consistent with the Minimum Wage (MW) and National Living Wage (NLW), and those advocated by the Living Wage Campaign (LWC). Models were among the lowest paid employees in all art schools, these rates replicated in different regions across the U.K. and abroad in the U.S., European and Asian territories. Painting, drawing and sculpture tutors (with whom life models actively collaborated in art classes) typically commanded rates of pay three to six times more than models. [5]

Even if not an artistic practice, models were freelance, skilled professionals undertaking physically and emotionally demanding work. This begged the question, why did art schools deem the MW, NLW or LWC rates to be the appropriate measures via which to assess a life models remuneration? These rates neither reflected that work, nor were possible to live on in some cases after costs were absorbed, falling below the minimum wage in real terms. [6] The attitude of art schools toward life models was therefore revealed through the rate of pay they were awarded: it was difficult not to conclude that models were viewed as expendable commodities.

My motivation for writing ‘Are life models artists?’ was borne out of an urgent, existential imperative to raise these concerns in the public consciousness and art world. The perceptual and linguistic barriers I had identified were directly related to the remunerative issues I was struggling to navigate through as a professional model; expressions of each other, they were feedback mechanisms perpetually reinforcing themselves. If the very institutions on which the life model often depended for their existence promoted these attitudes, what hope could models ever have of their practice being properly understood and respected?

Compounded with these problems, I could not locate any significant literature within either the academic or art worlds drawing attention to life modelling as an artistic practice. Notwithstanding Quentin Crisp’s 1968 memoir, [7] the emphasis of all discourse was placed either on the ‘artists’ motivation for drawing from life, the functional role of the model as an instrument for representational drawing or on the role of the muse as the inspiration for artists to create their work. I felt completely unseen, and yet stood on stages within life rooms and studios every day, the focal point upon which thousands of sets of eyes gazed. I embodied my critique, which arose directly out of my practice.

At the time I began researching and writing in mid-2016, I was working eighteen-hour days from when I left home in the morning to arriving home in the evening, often twenty days in a row without a break. I had already begun a vociferous public campaign, lobbying the directors of most art schools to improve the conditions under which they employed life models. More enlightened attitudes could be located outside the art school sector, with independent groups including Reconfigure, London Drawing, Freeform Life Drawing and Draw Brighton all rallying the artistic potential of the life model, and individual practitioners including Françoise Odill, Valerie Ebuwa and Conkuntion unambiguously asserting their artistry through their work, rejecting prevailing norms. However, perceptions were dictated mainly by institutional policies and practices.

One of the few institutions that championed the artistic potential of the life model, recognising the skilled, physically and emotionally demanding nature of modelling (and offering a rate of pay commensurate with it), was the RA. Having worked at the RA for several years [8], I was conscious of its history as one of the academies, and began considering the art historical relationship between the life model and the academic traditions of fine art. Through this lens, it became clear that contemporary attitudes had been fundamentally shaped by past epochs, grounded in the Renaissance.

Unable to support myself financially or sustain my schedule physically, and unwilling to tacitly endorse what I perceived to be exploitative work practices employed by most art schools toward life models, I moved away from modelling full-time in the summer of 2019 in order to focus on my literary career as an art writer, maintaining my position at the RA and with a few other institutions, working collaboratively with several artists and remaining closely connected with the life drawing and art worlds in the U.K., the U.S., and Europe. I continued campaigning to improve the rate of pay art schools awarded life models, and from March 2020 began an ongoing analysis of the impact of the pandemic on the role of the life model within art history and art practice, my analysis informing the latest iterations of my lecture series, and translation of it into book form.

THEORETICAL UNDERPINNING

CULTURAL PARADIGMS AND CONTEXTUAL PARAMETERS

Traditional Western academic definitions of Fine Art are inextricably linked with the emergence of the art academies in Florence and Rome in the 16th Century, and later in Paris and London. [9] Popularised by the Académie Royale de Peinture et Sculpture and the Royal Academy of Arts, the academies functioned as “schools of instruction, [holding] annual or semi-annual exhibitions, and [providing] venues where artists could display their work and cultivate critical notice”. [10]

Students initially worked from facsimiles of Greco-Roman sculpture prior to moving onto casts (as shown in Fig 1.), before being permitted to draw from the human figure. [11] Renaissance ideals established the male form as the ultimate expression of artistic merit, European academies almost exclusively employing male life models until the late 19th century after which point both male and female models were represented in the life room. [12]

The model typically assumed poses derived from the same classical sculpture, prescribed by a tutor within drawing classes, allowing students to discern, and learn, the anatomical structure. [13] This knowledge provided a critical grounding in the complexities of the human form, ultimately informing the emerging artist in their drawing or sculptural practice. Further, models were employed within portrait classes, often clothed, during which they would be directed by a tutor to construct seated or reclining poses for their students to realise on paper, canvas, or in clay.

The life model might therefore be considered to have dwelled within hierarchical power structures as a passive conduit for the artist to realise their vision. These power structures gave rise to cultural paradigms, the academies becoming the filters via which the role of the model was interpreted and understood in the contemporary context. According to this proposition, models assumed servant status as mercenary drawing instruments rather than having the potential for being autonomous creative practitioners with agency, artists in their own right through their practice.

It is useful to reflect upon the sectors of society from which models were drawn when considering the validity of this theory. At the RA, “male models…were chosen for their physique, and were often the porters of the Academy, soldiers or boxers. Women on the other hand … were often sex workers [and] working-class, and in many cases it would have been the brothel owner who sent them, regardless of their own wishes.” [14]

It is significant to also note, as Angela DeCarlis and Álida Pepper draw attention to, that “an atelier today looks very much the same as it did in 1800’s Paris, as do the interactions between artist and model…contemporary studios continue to reference plaster casts of hyper-idealized Greco-Roman statuary as educational tools, and art models tend to possess body types which reflect classical standards of beauty.” [15]

These factors help to make sense of the cultural paradigms theorised at the core of this paper, and prevailing attitudes relating to the role of the life model exhibited by art schools. If the calculus upon which art schools base the rate of pay they award models is that modelling is a menial role undertaken by unskilled workers, it follows that they would award very low rates of pay. By extension, if the role of the life model is assumed to exist only within the narrowly defined parameters of the anatomy or portrait class or the artist / muse relationship, models would then be regarded as mercenary drawing instruments (or at best the inspiration for an artist to create their work through their emotional engagement). The feedback mechanism previously mentioned is revealed; prevailing art historical norms feeding into the contemporary context become echo chambers legitimising and reinforcing each other.

DISMANTLING PREVAILING ATTITUDES AND CULTURAL PARADIGMS

For anyone who has ever worked professionally as a life model, the notions that modelling is

either unskilled or devoid of creative potential would be contrary to their experience. While the models role within the academic traditions of fine art as defined within the emerging art academies of the 16th and 17th centuries was considered passive, coming to represent their status in the contemporary period, the physical reality inhabited by models could not be further removed from that perception.

Importantly, the Renaissance ideals which took as their foundation the Greco-Roman conceptions of beauty, holding the academic traditions as the highest good, appeared archaic by the early part of the twentieth century in light of the pluralisation of artistic movements. Notwithstanding the move away from academic art characterised by the early avant-garde schools including Realism and Impressionism, [16] the development of more performative art forms grounded in Dadaism and leading to the varieties of Performance Art popularised from the late 1960’s by Carolee Schneemann, Joan Jonas, Joseph Beuys, Ulay and Marina Abramović (and others) conferred a greater artistic potential on the life model:

1. Are life models muses?

While the muse, or portrait model, might be charged with an emotional intensity, which is only natural given that they are a human rather than a cast, an individual charged with all the various idiosyncratic character traits that together make up their personality, that emotional intensity should not be confused with the notion of artistry. Although life models might be muses or sitters, their role is infinitely more complex than that would suggest. Whereas the muse serves the artists they sit for, the life model possesses greater artistic potential in their own right.

2. Are life models artists?

While not claiming in an absolute sense that life modelling is an art form, this paper advocates a more enlightened perspective according to which it might become one within the realm of performance art or contemporary dance given particular motivations on the part of the model and the contexts within which they locate their practice. This would undoubtedly be the case were the models motivation for creating their forms be borne out of a specific desire to realise an artistic vision.

Although possible, the anatomy class is unlikely to be the context within which modelling becomes an artform. Within contexts in which models improvise and inhabit the forms they create; however, modelling might become a physical mode of artistic practice within which the model uses their body as their medium of expression to create works of art in symbiosis with the other artists assembled to draw, paint or sculpt them. This likely occurs within ‘short pose’ sessions during which the forms the model improvises last from seconds up to around ten minutes (durations of longer than the upper limit impose physical restrictions preventing models from being as freely able to improvise; it would be difficult / impossible to maintain many short forms for extended periods of time). Models might also choreograph forms in advance of sessions taking place.

In defining modelling in the way, the hierarchical power structure previously mentioned is redressed (as detailed in Fig 2.); whereas previously the relationship was artist >>>> model, it becomes artist >>>> artist, two distinct practices existing on a plateau, coming together in symbiosis to create new work. Where life models might previously have been considered muses, within this new way of understanding modelling, the (other) artists assembled to draw, paint or sculpt the model could be considered a collective muse inspiring the models own work.

For Joan Jonas, “[art] is about communication. Art is a dialogue with art, a dialogue with other artists, a dialogue with the past, with the future, and it’s an important dialogue to have.” [17] Jonas’ sentiments are echoed by Françoise Odill, a London based life model whose literary work detailing her experiences of performing capture the essence of this notion of symbiosis: “[sometimes] I imagine the energy streams running back and forth between the artists and my figure.” [18]

An experiential perspective

Like any other artistic practice, life modelling requires discipline, it takes time to hone your craft, to become one with yourself. When you are modelling, you have only your body to work with. In that way it feels like the purest form of artistic expression; you are vulnerable, yet through all the infinite and subtle variations of movement you are capable of making, possess unlimited creative power. Modelling is not merely a function of an academic exercise, neither the model or other artists present within the studio or life room need to be there, we chose to be because we have an innately human need to create, to engage in an aesthetic practice, it brings meaning into our lives. If modelling was a kind of anatomical data entry, most models would not engage in the practice.

The inspiration for the ephemeral forms I create emerges spontaneously in solitude, and in collaboration with the other artists I work with. Although interested in figurative art in its myriad forms, I am intrigued by the possibility of moving from the figurative onto abstraction, contorting my body in such a way that it might be less easy to discern my anatomy. In discovering new forms, I often move slowly until I arrive in an arrangement of shapes that feel innately beautiful or intriguing. These ephemeral works of art are direct responses to the environments I locate myself within and the people I share them with and to my body itself. When working within more conservative settings, I occasionally try to subvert the traditional norms of the kinds of ‘poses’ life models are expected to inhabit. Sometimes just for fun, but often to demonstrate that those forms are not the only ones of artistic merit within the life drawing context.

3. Life modelling as a skilled practice

The prevailing attitudes suggesting that modelling is an unskilled practice are entirely at odds with the nature of modelling, whether within the anatomy class or beyond it. Rather than the stereotype characterised by the paradigm, professional models largely work according to their own intuition and not to direction, assessing the kinds of forms that might be interesting to draw and which would make most sense within the context of the class, session or artist’s studio they might be working within. When considering poses within the anatomy class or other formal settings, models will instinctively draw on art historical references, considering Michelangelo, Da Vinci or Giambologna, for instance.

Models will also take into consideration negative spaces, the way light and shade fall across the form, and forms that accentuate the body’s musculature. A repertoire of standard forms will probably be choreographed and memorised, from classical contrapposto poses that accentuate the musculature to reclining configurations. Further, models will be sensitive to the spaces within which they work; artists are usually arranged in either a 180-degree arc or 360-degree circle around the model, so consideration will be made taking into account how a given pose would look in the round, from every viewing position. Most art schools require models to work independent of instruction, creating multiple short poses in quick succession across three-hour classes or entire days.

DIFFERING CONTEXTS ALTER PERCEPTUAL FRAMEWORKS

During the time I worked as a professional life model, the largest segment of my work was derived from the art school sector. It was very common while modelling to be approached by students in breaks between poses (often immediately after inhabiting a physically challenging form that I believed to be charged with artistic potential), who would ask questions such as: ‘so what do you do then?’ (the assumption being that I must do something other than modelling, that modelling could not possibly be the way I had elected to spend my time); ‘are you also an artist?’ (meaning did I draw, paint or sculpt; I always wanted to respond: ‘Yes! And my artistry was just revealed before your very eyes, and you missed it… you were looking but not seeing!’; or (the classic) ‘are you an actor / student / musician?’ (fulfilling the stereotype that life models must all be out of work actors or undergraduates hoping to raise some extra cash).

On interviewing Sir Christopher Le Brun, then President of the RA, for my lecture series, and asking why he felt it might be the case that my practice, and the skill underpinning it, was often lost on those people who were drawing me, he suggested that “perceptual barriers act as powerful filters preventing your artistry from being properly understood within the context of the art school”. [19] Considering this analysis, I realised that context was key; within the context of the life room the filter via which my practice continued to be interpreted and understood was the western academic tradition of drawing. This filter was so powerful that no matter what my motivation for modelling might have been, and no matter how artistically charged my work was, I might only ever be viewed as a mercenary drawing instrument functioning to serve the artists who assembled to draw me, rather than co-existing in creative symbiosis.

According to this logic, differing contexts might alter perceptual frameworks of understanding, unambiguously revealing my artistic potential; if I located my practice in contexts within which the people viewing me were not drawing, or learning to draw, rather actively engaging with my work in the same way they might a painting or sculpture in a gallery or museum, my artistry might instantly crystalise in the minds of the viewers. The work itself would remain unchanged, however differing contexts would allow a shift in consciousness to occur.

This new way of thinking is one that Anne Noble-Partridge, director of London Drawing, shares. It is Noble-Partridge’s belief that the life model could dictate the nature of the unfolding drawing session, even to the extent that they direct the (other) artists assembled not to draw them, but merely to witness their evolving work. [20] Audiences would experience different facets of the same practice, viewing it not as ‘modelling’ but as a form of performance art.

Without having realised it prior to my conversations with Sir Christopher and Noble-Partridge, I was already engaged in the curation of my work through Facebook and Instagram; almost from the beginning of my journey as a life model I had photographed the forms I created in the life room (either using a self-timer on my iPhone, or else requesting that tutors took photographs), giving each construction a title (for instance, ‘Abstract Form VII’ or ‘Experimental Form IV’). When posting work within my social media platforms, I exclusively received comments describing it as artistic. This made sense, the filter via which the viewers were interpreting it was not the life room, rather a photographic medium (although its original context was the art school). Viewers interacted with it differently; removed from previous paradigmatic shackles, my artistry was revealed.

About a year after activating my first Instagram account, I realised that my profile name, ‘@dominicblakelifemodel’, was inhibiting the ability of viewers to properly understand my work. I changed it to ‘@dominicblakeartist’, unambiguously asserting myself as an artist, and within a short space of time received four times as many followers as I previously had gained, including gallerists and art journalists, and invitations to exhibit my work in galleries. I installed myself at the Royal Society of Sculptors, Pitzhanger Manor and the Royal College of Art, and also exhibited photographic work at the RA. Further, artists working in other disciplines began inviting me to engage in artistic collaborations with them on the basis that we would split the profit of any work we created in half. Within these collaborations, I would make an equal contribution toward the vision of the work, using my body to realise it.

THE SEISMIC IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC

The initial impact of the pandemic was terrifying for all freelance workers within the arts sector, and life models were no exception. Almost overnight, schedules of work collapsed with no certainty that they would be reinstated. Models found themselves in the curious position of being both self-employed freelancers, and employees of art schools by virtue of the zero-hour contracts they languished on. One of the significant problems professional models faced resulting from this (in the U.K.) was that they were eligible for less money in real terms via the governments Self-Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS) than they might otherwise have been, and unable to benefit from furlough payments in the same way that contracted employees were (although a minority of art schools did offer such payments).

Beyond art schools, which represented the largest portion of the life models income, independent groups closed down, and it was no longer possible to work privately with artists in their studios. Even at the point at which the rules relaxed allowing educational establishments to deliver classes, those offered were dramatically reduced in number and size.

These changes obliged models to seek other ways of working. The online drawing landscape rapidly developed with existing life drawing groups moving online and (significantly) individual practitioners curating their own life drawing events via Zoom. Life models, no longer beholden to the art schools who refused to negotiate pay rates with them, could establish their own rates. Working online was a novel experience for most models, and presented new challenges (practitioners having to set-up makeshift studios at their homes, invest in new camera equipment and learn how to negotiate their environments in such a way that the forms they created made sense within a two-dimensional screen). There were of course safety concerns, too; it was necessary to construct methods to prevent viewers from taking screenshots of models in pose without permission.

Given this new landscape, models quickly established rates of pay that ranged from £50 per hour to, in some cases, over £100 per hour where they curated their own sessions. It was very common for life drawing groups to pay £25 per hour or more, and also to offer a share of the profits of each session to the model. Through establishing their own life drawing sessions and assuming curatorial control over the form they took, models asserted themselves unambiguously as artists in their own right while simultaneously commanding rates of pay that it was not merely possible to live on, but which reflected the work they undertook and which they could thrive on.

The pandemic therefore brought about a seismic shift in attitudes toward modelling and working conditions, in light of which models began to question whether it made practical or existential sense to return to art schools within which they languished on what many felt were poverty pay rates. The answer was that many did not. In positions to refuse the arbitrarily low rates of pay art schools offered, models started rejecting work when life drawing, painting and sculpture classes resumed as lockdown restrictions eased.

Many London art schools are now in the process of improving their rates of pay. Between the Summer of 2021 and February 2022, almost every London art school improved their rates, this unlikely to be a coincidence given that wages have historically stagnated and during the pandemic institutions complained that the impact of lockdowns would prohibit pay increases from happening for considerable periods of time. In addition, rates of pay have dramatically improved in the peripheral landscape; it is now common for independent life drawing groups to pay models rates exceeding £25 per hour, where they might previously have ranged from £14–20 per hour in the months leading up to the pandemic. In addition, having been empowered by the changing landscape, models have felt confident to begin unionising. The author of this paper, and several other life models, began an embryonic campaign with The Broadcasting, Entertainment, Communications and Theatre Union (BECTU) in 2021 to improve conditions within art schools, reassessing their work as a specialised, skilled practice. Life models are directing their own destiny and altering perceptions about the nature of their work.

Bibliography

This paper is an adaptation of ‘Are life models artists?’, a translation of the authors lecture series of the same name, due for publication in book form in 2023.

Interviews:

Baring, Jo. (Director, The Ingram Collection of Modern British Art). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake at the Royal Academy of Arts, 3rd July 2019.

Clarke, Darren. (Head of Collections and Research, The Charleston Trust). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake at Charleston, 3 December 2019.

Delvine, JJ. (Figurative artist). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake in the artist’s studio, London, 1 and 8 July 2019.

George, Robin. (Life Model). Interview. Conducted over the phone, 07 March 2018.

Healy, Desmond. (Figurative artist and drawing tutor). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake at Hampstead School of Art, 5 March 2018.

Lagarde, Suzon. (Figurative artist, Life Model). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake at The Art Academy, London, 4 February 2019.

Le Brun, Christopher. (Past President, Royal Academy of Arts). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake in the Academicians Room at the Royal Academy of Arts, 10 July 2019.

Martin, Simon. (Director, Pallant House Gallery). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake at the Royal Academy of Arts, 1 August 2019.

Noble Partridge, Anne. (Director, London Drawing). Interviews. Conducted by Dominic Blake at The National Gallery, 23 September 2019 and The Crypt Gallery, 6 September 2021.

Saunders, Gill. (Senior Curator, V&A department of Word and Image). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake at the Victoria and Albert Museum, 24 July 2019.

Wardle, Lara. (Director Curator, The Jerwood Collection). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake at the Royal Academy of Arts, 1 July 2019.

Other sources:

Blake, Dominic. 2019. At the RA. https://www.dominicblake.co.uk/photographs?pgid=jry5d60j-a3af422a-c4f7-4c1f-8b3f-1fb620742e36

Bluett, Amy. March 2021. Naked truth: the story of female life models at the RA. Royal Academy of Arts. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/naked-truth-the-story-of-female (first accessed 3 March 2021, last accessed January 2022).

Crisp, Quentin. 1968. The Naked Civil Servant. Reprint, Harper Collins Publishers, 1996.

DeCarlis, Angela and Álida Pepper. 2021. “Amidst Global Chaos, Muses Have Gained Agency over the Artist’s Gaze for the First Time. What are the Social Justice Implications of this Shift in Power?” Paper presented at The Creative Resilience symposium, The University of Florida’s Student Society for Musicology, Florida, October 15–17, 2010.

Bech Dyg, Kasper. 2017. Interview “Joan Jonas: Layers of Time.” Uploaded in November 2015. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art video, 20:01 min. Conducted at Malmö Konsthall, Sweden. https://channel.louisiana.dk/video/joan-jonas-layers-time (last accessed January 2022).

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Odill, Françoise, 2022. [On long poses]. https://www.instagram.com/p/CbGCUA1Ad5l/ (last accessed March 2022).

Rosenfeld, Ph.D., Jason. “The Salon and The Royal Academy in the Nineteenth Century.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: 2000–. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/sara/hd_sara.htm (last accessed January 2022)

Salter, Rebecca. 2017. “Introduction”. In Artists Working From Life, edited by Sam Phillips, 8–10. London, Royal Academy Publications.

Ibid., Wickham, Annette. From the Renaissance to the Royal Academy. 14–16.

Vankin, Deborah. 2021. “Can performance art be owned? Why the genre is often missing in museum collections”. Los Angeles Times, 8 August 2019. https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2019-08-07/moca-xu-zhen-performance-art (first accessed, 10 August 2019, last accessed February 2022).

Dominic Blake

Dominic Blake is a London based art writer and performance artist whose work concerning the life model is located at the core of the emerging debate this symposium takes as its focus. His ongoing lecture series ‘Are Life Models Artists?’ has appeared at venues including The National Gallery, Mall Galleries and Royal College of Art, receiving press coverage at the national level. Prior to embarking on his literary and artistic careers, he worked for a number of years in administrative and press office roles in the museum sector at the V&A, British Museum and Royal Museums Greenwich. A life model at the Royal Academy of Arts, he is currently completing a translation of his lecture series into book form, due for publication in the summer of 2023.

Dominic Blake is a life model at the Royal Academy of Arts within their Academic Programmes dept. and an independent art writer and performance artist. He is co-organiser of ‘Revaluing the Life Model in Art Practice’.

[1] Vankin, Deborah. August 2021. Can performance art be owned? Why the genre is often missing in museum collections. Los Angeles Times (last accessed, January 2022).

[2] Baring, Jo. Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake at the Royal Academy of Arts, 3rd July 2019.

[3] Blake, Dominic. 2019. ‘Are Life Models Artists?’, The National Gallery, September 2019.

[4] MoMA., n.d., Gilbert & George. https://www.moma.org/artists/7496 (first accessed 1 December 2018, last accessed January 2022).

[5] Pay rates established according to a detailed, ongoing analysis of those awarded by the major art schools in each of these territories, independent art schools and life drawing groups, by Dominic Blake (2016–2022).

[6] The MW, NLW and LWC rates were distortions of reality when travel expenses, time and associated costs were factored in. Unlike ‘9–5pm’ roles, modelling was precarious, typically broken up into two- or three-hour classes / sessions. A two- hour London based class, paid at the rate of £14 per hour, would equal £28. Assuming travel time of one hour each direction, arriving 20 minutes earlier than the class begins a model might net £16 (£3.5 per hour pro-rata). Where models worked full-time, they would invariably be obliged to accept regular evening classes on top of full days of work, often travelling extensively throughout each day and working 6–7-days a week, to survive.

[7] In ‘The Naked Civil Servant’, Crisp detailed his experiences of life modelling in the London art world. His legacy as an advocate of more enlightened attitudes according to which modelling might assume a performative ‘aesthetic’, was almost singular in the literary landscape both within the art world and academia.

[8] Blake, Dominic. 2019. At the RA. https://www.dominicblake.co.uk/photographs?pgid=jry5d60j-a3af422a-c4f7-4c1f-8b3f-1fb620742e36

[9] Salter, Rebecca. 2017. “Introduction.” In Artists Working From Life, edited by Sam Phillips, 8–10. London, Royal Academy Publications.

[10] Rosenfeld, Jason. “The Salon and The Royal Academy in the Nineteenth Century.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: 2000.

[11] Hampson, Mark (Director of Fine Art Processes, RA). “A History of the Royal Academy Schools.” Royal Academy attRAct talk, 14 February 2019, 25 February 2022. Royal Academy of Arts.

[12] Wickham, Annette. 2017. “From the Renaissance to the Royal Academy.” In Artists Working From Life, edited by Sam Phillips, 14–16. London, Royal Academy Publications.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Bluett, Amy. March 2021. Naked truth: the story of female life models at the RA. Royal Academy of Arts. https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/naked-truth-the-story-of-female (first accessed 3 March 2021, last accessed January 2022).

[15] DeCarlis, Angela and Álida Pepper. 2021. Amidst Global Chaos, Muses Have Gained Agency over the Artist’s Gaze for the First Time. What are the Social Justice Implications of this Shift in Power? The University of Florida.

[16] Rosenfeld, Jason. “The Salon and The Royal Academy in the Nineteenth Century.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: 2000.

[17] Bech Dyg, Kasper. 2017. Interview “Joan Jonas: Layers of Time.” Uploaded in November 2015. Louisiana Museum of Modern Art video, 20:01 min. Conducted at Malmö Konsthall, Sweden. https://channel.louisiana.dk/video/joan-jonas-layers-time (last accessed January 2022).

[18] Odill, Françoise, 2022. [On long poses]. https://www.instagram.com/p/CbGCUA1Ad5l/ (last accessed March 2022).

[19] Le Brun, Christopher. (Past President, Royal Academy of Arts). Interview. Conducted by Dominic Blake in the Academicians Room at the Royal Academy of Arts, 10 July 2019.

[20] Noble Partridge, Anne. (Director, London Drawing). Interviews. Conducted by Dominic Blake at The National Gallery, 23 September 2019 and The Crypt Gallery, 6 September 2021.