“American Venus”: A Path from Fame to Ruin
She was everywhere, and more than 100 years later, she is still a New York City fixture: “The Perfect Woman”, “Miss Manhattan”, “American Venus”. If you have walked past Riverside Park, Columbus Circle, Straus Park, the Municipal Building, the Manhattan Bridge, Columbus Circle, the Pulitzer Fountain, and Grand Army Plaza–you have seen her.
Her real name was Audrey Munson, and for a short while, her figure and classical beauty personified the Beaux-Arts ideal of womanhood. Famous sculptors of the early 1900’s flocked to capture her likeness. (She was also, incidentally, willing to pose in the nude…) Modeling led to films – or, more correctly, modeling in films (she played a sculptor’s model) in the earliest days of silent movies. The buzz was certainly loud, though, as Audrey’s debut was the first non-pornographic “art film” to feature a nude woman. We’ll view clips from a long-lost silent film starring Audrey and determine for ourselves whether she was Purity personified or “injurious to public morals”.
Even as she became known around the world, within a few short years it was all over. Obsession led to murder and ruin; fame dissolved into obscurity.
So who was Audrey? Social historian Tom Miller (aka the Daytonian in Manhattan blogger) unveils the woman who, in many ways, came to define an era. Once you know her story, you, too, will see her everywhere.
Speaker Tom Miller, a historian and preservationist, is the voice of Daytonian in Manhattan, a hugely popular blog started seven years ago, in which he has covered more than 2,700 Manhattan buildings, statues, fountains and “other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating”. He is the author of Seeking New York: The Stories Behind the Historic Architecture of Manhattan–One Building at a Time (Pimpernel Press, 2015) and his companion book, Seeking Chicago (Rizzoli International, 2018).
$15-$20
She was everywhere, and more than 100 years later, she is still a New York City fixture: “The Perfect Woman”, “Miss Manhattan”, “American Venus”. If you have walked past Riverside Park, Columbus Circle, Straus Park, the Municipal Building, the Manhattan Bridge, Columbus Circle, the Pulitzer Fountain, and Grand Army Plaza–you have seen her.
Her real name was Audrey Munson, and for a short while, her figure and classical beauty personified the Beaux-Arts ideal of womanhood. Famous sculptors of the early 1900’s flocked to capture her likeness. (She was also, incidentally, willing to pose in the nude…) Modeling led to films – or, more correctly, modeling in films (she played a sculptor’s model) in the earliest days of silent movies. The buzz was certainly loud, though, as Audrey’s debut was the first non-pornographic “art film” to feature a nude woman. We’ll view clips from a long-lost silent film starring Audrey and determine for ourselves whether she was Purity personified or “injurious to public morals”.
Even as she became known around the world, within a few short years it was all over. Obsession led to murder and ruin; fame dissolved into obscurity.
So who was Audrey? Social historian Tom Miller (aka the Daytonian in Manhattan blogger) unveils the woman who, in many ways, came to define an era. Once you know her story, you, too, will see her everywhere.
Speaker Tom Miller, a historian and preservationist, is the voice of Daytonian in Manhattan, a hugely popular blog started seven years ago, in which he has covered more than 2,700 Manhattan buildings, statues, fountains and “other points of interest that make Manhattan fascinating”. He is the author of Seeking New York: The Stories Behind the Historic Architecture of Manhattan–One Building at a Time (Pimpernel Press, 2015) and his companion book, Seeking Chicago (Rizzoli International, 2018).
$15-$20
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