Painting Oil & Paint by Mimi Korach Lesser,: Reclining Nude, Framed

A back, a hip, a shoulder, and not a single unnecessary line.

Reclining Nude is a framed oil paint on Masonite by Mimi Korach Lesser, American, 1922 to 2018, from about 1950. Figure painting persisted through the abstract years of the mid-century, as painters used the nude to study form and color for gallery and home walls. Here a pale body lies across the panel with her back to us, built from flat planes of cream and putty. Slabs of white, charcoal, olive and brick red press in around her. A short black shape stands for the hair. The frame is dark and heavily carved. Forty-two inches wide and twenty-eight high.

She has turned away. The painting has not suffered for it.