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Audrey Munson

Audrey Munson
Nude Audrey Munson - Heedless Moths.jpg
in Heedless Moths (1921)
Born Audrey Marie Munson
(1891-06-08)June 8, 1891
Rochester, New York, United States
Died February 20, 1996(1996-02-20) (aged 104)
Ogdensburg, New York, United States
Resting place New Haven Cemetery
Nationality American
Occupation Artist's model, actress
Years active 1906–1921

Audrey Marie Munson (June 8, 1891 – February 20, 1996) was an American artist's model and film actress, considered "America's First Supermodel," and variously known as "Miss Manhattan", the "Panama–Pacific Girl", the "Exposition Girl" and "American Venus". She was the model or inspiration for more than 12 statues in New York City and was the first American movie star to appear fully nude in film, in Inspiration (1915), appearing in four silent films.

Long after she and everyone else of this generation shall have become dust, Audrey Munson, who posed for three-fifths of all the statuary of the Panama–Pacific exposition, will live in the bronzes and canvasses of the art centers of the world.

Audrey Marie Munson was born in Rochester, New York, on June 8, 1891. Her father was from Mexico, New York, and she later lived there. Her parents, Edgar Munson and Katherine "Kittie" Mahaney, divorced when she was eight, and Audrey and her mother moved to Providence, Rhode Island.

In 1909, when she was 17 years old, Audrey Munson moved to New York with her mother to become an actress and chorus girl. Her first role on Broadway was as a "footman" in The Boy and The Girl at the Aerial Garden, which ran from May 31-June 19, 1909. She also appeared in The Girl and the Wizard, Girlies and La Belle Paree.

While window-shopping on Fifth Avenue with her mother, she was spotted by photographer Felix Benedict Herzog, who asked her to pose for him at his studio in the Lincoln Arcade Building on Broadway and 65th Street. Herzog introduced her to his friends in the art world, and she began to pose for numerous artists. It was the sculptor Isidore Konti who first persuaded her to pose nude, using her as his model for the three figures in his "Three Graces" for the new Grand Ballroom at the Hotel Astor in Times Square. For the next decade, Munson became the model of choice for a host of sculptors and painters in New York. According to The Sun in 1913, "Over a hundred artists agree that if the name of Miss Manhattan belongs to anyone in particular it is to this young woman." By 1915, she was so well established that she became Alexander Stirling Calder's model of choice for the Panama–Pacific International Exposition held that year. She posed for three-fifths of the sculpture created for the event and earned fame as the "Panama–Pacific Girl".


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