Blue Nude # 19

“In format, title and play of figure and ground [Wesselmann’s Blue Nudes] were obvious homages to Matisse’s late series of the same designation from the 1950s. Just as the Frenchman had abstracted the poses of his earlier paintings and sculptures of the seated nude with an arm raised over her head, so Wesselmann now redrew both Matisse and himself in blue ghosts of his own repertoire.” (J. Wilmerding, Tom Wesselmann: His Voice and Vision, New York, 2008, p. 218)