Audrey Munson
She stands with her wings spread high above New York City’s Municipal Building, greets readers at the entrance to the New York Public Library, welcomes visitors to the Brooklyn Museum, and salutes guests of the Plaza Hotel. New Yorkers pass her sculpted image every day, but few know her name, or that her life story is one of the most riveting and tragic stories to come out of the 20th century.
Listen to ArtMuse’s episode on Audrey Munson, America’s first supermodel, who not only modeled for countless important sculptures in New York City, but all across the United States.
Sadly, Audrey Munson is perhaps America’s first example of the cruel rise and fall of celebrity status. By the early 1920’s, Audrey’s life was filled with continuous challenges and tragedies.
Today her face, forever immortalized in bronze, stone, and copper throughout New York City, stares back at us, like a ghost from a haunted past.
In this episode, we bring her life and legacy the justice she deserves.
Listen to Part One & Part Two of ArtMuse’s episode on Audrey Munson:
This Episode is Produced by Kula Production Company.
REFERENCES
Bone, James. The Curse of Beauty: The Scandalous & Tragic Life of Audrey Munson, America’s First Supermodel. Regan Arts, 2017.
Handzo, Stephen. Hollywood and the Female Body: A History of Idolization and Objectification. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2020.
FURTHER REFERENCES
Roberts, Sam. “Overlooked No More: Audrey Munson, Forgotten but, Living on in Sculptures, Not Gone.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 15 Dec. 2022.
IMAGES
Adolph A. Weinman, Civil Fame, gilded copper, 1913.New York City Municipal Building.
Frederick MacMonies, Beauty, granite, 1911. New York’s Public Library.
Daniel Chester French, Miss Brooklyn, granite, 1916. Originally flanked the Brooklyn entrance of Manhattan Bridge. Today outside of the Brooklyn Museum.
Daniel Chester French, Miss Manhattan, granite, 1916. Originally flanked the Brooklyn entrance of Manhattan Bridge. Today outside of the Brooklyn Museum.
The Brooklyn entrance of the Manhattan Bridge with two statues by Daniel Chester French (both modeled on Audrey Munson) on either side of entrance.
Karl Bitter & Isadore Konti, Pamona, bronze marble, 1916. The Pulitzer Fountain outside New York’s Plaza Hotel.
Photo of Audrey Munson in her prime, at the height of her modeling career.
Attilio Piccirilli, USS Maine Monument, gilded bronze, 1913. At entrance to Central Park at Columbus Circle.
Carl Augustus Herber, Spirit of Commerce, marble, 1914. At the Manhattan entrance to Manhattan Bridge at Canal Street.
Audrey Munson atop the Wisconsin State Capitol.
Herbert Adams, The three figures on the McMillan Memorial Fountain, 1913. At the McMillan Reservoir in Washington, DC.
Allen George Newman, Peace Monument, 1911, Piedmont Park, Atlanta, GA.
Audrey Munson modeled as Evangeline in the Longfellow Memorial in Cambridge, Mass.
Audrey Munson featured in the Monument to Women of the Confederacy in Jacksonville, Florida.
Poster for the 1915 San Francisco World Fair, in which Audrey featured in 3/4 of the statues exhibited.
A scene from Inspiration (1915). Here Audrey made history as the first woman in a leading roll to be fully in the nude in an American film.
Eliza Cooper, Pencil, watercolor, ink, 1837. Eliza Cooper traveled to Upstate, New York when Audrey was a child and her associate famously read Audrey’s future.
Felix Benedict Herzog, the photographer who discovered Audrey on the street.
Isidore Konti, the sculptor whom Audrey first modeled for in the nude.
Isidore Konti, The Three Graces, 1913, originally installed at the Astor Hotel. Audrey modeled for all three figures. Sadly it no longer exists.
Augustus Lukeman, Memory, Bronze & granite, 1915. At the Straus Memorial in New York City.
Francis Picabia, Udnie (Young American Girl, oil on canvas, 1913.
Adolph Weinman, Descending Night, bronze, 1915. Exhibited at the 1915 World Fair.
Alexander Stirling Calder, Star Maiden, 1913, exhibited at the 1915 World Fair.
Part Two
Edward Franklin Albee, the man who is believed to have assaulted Audrey Munson in her dressing room on Broadway.
A promotional brochure for Inspiration (1915), Audrey’s first film in which she is the first woman in a leading role to appear in the nude in an American film.
Another promotional brochure for Inspiration (1915).
A still from Inspiration (1915) in which Audrey is filmed in the nude.
Promotional brochure for Purity (1916), starring Audrey.
Another promotional brochure for Purity (1916), starring Audrey.
A still from Purity (1916), in which Audrey once again appears in the nude.
A promotional image for Purity (1916).
Audrey Munson on the beach of California in 1916, wearing her one piece bathing suit.
Audrey in 1916, examining the hydroplane in California.
Hermann Oelrich, who Audrey dated around 1917.
Dr. Wilkins, who was charged with murdering his wife allegedly so that he could be with Audrey.
“The Queen of the Artist’s Studios” weekly write-ups that promoted Heedless Moths, a movie telling the story of Audrey’s life.
Newspaper article about Audrey Munson finding her “perfect man”, Joseph Stevenson.
Saint Lawrence State Hospital in Ogdensburg, New York
Audrey Munson’s grave.
