John De Andrea

John De Andrea, born in 1941, American sculptor, creator of life-size nudes made of painted polyvinyl and finished with human hair. The extreme realism of De Andrea's nude figures, cast directly from live models, forces the art viewer into the potentially awkward position of acting as a voyeur.

John De Andrea was born in Denver, Colorado. He studied art at the University of Colorado in Boulder, graduating with a B.F.A. degree in 1965, then attended the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque from 1966 to 1968. De Andrea began working with polyvinyl materials in the mid-1960s. His work won critical acclaim almost immediately.

For his subjects, De Andrea chooses almost flawlessly ideal models: They are young, sometimes even children, as in Boys Playing Soccer (1971, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York), and usually slim and well-proportioned. The beauty of De Andrea's sculpted bodies is not a classical, unattainable ideal of beauty, but a reflection of actual beauty, found in life. Although De Andrea insists that his technical process, which captures details with great accuracy, reflects reality without interpretation, his choices as to model, pose, expression, and props all influence the meaning of his work. In Brunette Sitting on Table (1973, Hoffman collection, Chicago), a woman sits slumped on the edge of a table, dangling her feet, hands crossed lazily in front of her. Her unconcerned attitude separates her from the viewer, transforming her from a real person into an object to examine. In Artist and Model (1976, private collection), a standing man, whose clothes and hands are covered in plaster, stares at the seated figure of a nude woman who is half-encased in plaster. This scene layers illusion on top of illusion, and also plays on the age-old myth of Pygmalion, in which an artist dreams that his sculpture of the ideal woman comes alive.

De Andrea's work can be linked to the similar work of American sculptor Duane Hanson. It also has similarities with that of photorealist artists such as Richard Estes, an American painter whose works exhibit a realism akin to photography.