ENTRY DESCRIPTION
Entry description:
SEPTEMBER 2, 2005 : ARTS : ARTS REVIEW Arts Review BY *JACQUELINE MAY* George Krause presents a group of larger-than-life black-and-white nude portraits called Sfumato Nudes. Absent from these are props, backdrops, and staged poses. Rather, the artist has chosen to let the bodies themselves reveal the subjects' characters. Krause has chosen to represent a broad view of ages and body types within the series and does so with neither prurience nor shame, showing respect and compassion for the humanity of the people he portrays. His models honor the artist, and thereby his audience, with a degree of laid-back trust and generous willingness to share themselves that is a beautiful thing to behold. Particularly fascinating for the perspective they offer are a pair of photographs of a woman, both lovely, one taken while she is near term in her pregnancy, contented and glowing with life. I also found a portrait of an older man undergoing treatment for cancer to be especially engaging emotionally. The fear that comes with not knowing what that might look like is stripped bare to reveal an actuality that is both less and more frightening. With the revelation of the humanity of this dignified, wise-looking, yet undefensive person comes a degree of sympathy that hurts to feel. You look at him, and you see what it is to be truly brave.

AUTHOR
George Krause was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1937 and attended the Philadelphia College of Art on a scholarship. He received the first Prix de Rome and the first Fulbright-Hayes Fellowship ever awarded to a photographer, two Guggenheim Fellowships and three grants from National Endowment for the Arts. In 1993 he was the first photographer selected Texas Artist of the Year. Krause’s photographs are found in the world’s major museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Library of Congress, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. In 1999 he retired from the University of Houston, where in 1975 he founded the photography program, and now lives in Wimberley, Texas with seven cats.

“My work explores a land that is bordered on the one side by the ‘real’ imagery of photography and on the other in the world of fantasy, bridged with a touch of humor.”

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