The Robert Giard Foundation
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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Male Nude Wearing Angel Wings, 1994

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Man Holding Bar, 1979

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Man on a Motorcycle, 1977

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Mitchell and Lidell, 1983

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Nude with a Mirror, 1979

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Sunday Morning, 1989

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1984

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1986

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1991

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1989

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1979

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1990

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1990

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1983

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1994

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1990

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  • Title of Image

    Nudes

    Untitled, 1990

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Nudes


The nudes began with my first body of work in 1974: a series of self- Thereafter, friends, lovers, and acquaintances served as the occasions for the male nudes. From the point of view of the subject matter, two "settings" for the nude are recurrent in my work: one is the bath, for its intimacy and sensuality, and the other involves a second figured work within the photograph, usually some vernacular renderings of the male or female nude. From the point of view of approach to the subject, two directions are apparent. One is the tendency to classicize and to abstract the human form. In more recent work my inclination is to subsume the nude under the heading of the portrait. Rather than being examples of "the Nude," they are pictures of people who are naked. Curiously enough, the more classical, formal approach seems to me to skirt pornography more closely than the portrait approach. The classical handling, which depersonalizes the human form, allows for sexual fantasy. The portrait introduces an element of banality and specificity which is unsettling and off-putting. I think that this kind of banality and specificity are intrinsic to the medium of photography -- and not without its own eroticism. As Kafka remarked in his Diaries, "... the act of description is an erotic art." Isn't photography an act of description?

  • Male Nude Wearing Angel Wings
  • Man Holding Bar
  • Man on a Motorcycle
  • Mitchell and Lidell
  • Nude with a Mirror
  • Sunday Morning
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
  • Untitled
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The Robert Giard Foundation
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About Robert Giard photo of Robert Giard

Robert Giard was a portrait, landscape, and figure photographer.

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  • Galleries
    • Figures in Landscapes
    • Gay Sites
    • Landscapes
    • Nudes
    • Particular Voices
    • Portraits
    • Still Lifes
    • The Grandmother Winifred Portraits
  • News
  • Exhibitions
  • Fellowship
    • About
    • Current Recipient
    • Past Recipients
    • How to Apply
  • Who We Are
    • Mission Statement
    • Board Members
  • Resources
    • Fales Library & Special Collections, Bobst Library, NYU
    • Stephen Bulger Gallery
    • Yale Beinecke Library
    • New York Public Library