Edith Neff, Nude on Sidney's Balcony

Continuing my interest in narrative and myth, I explore the physical and psychological world of experience and memory.

-Edith Neff

Neff's portrait of a male nude is a direct and bold confrontation.  Based on her photographs, the man is painted large in scale and isolated by the green wall of the balcony. Neff conveys a stillness and quiet in his pose and the city behind. An intensity and sense of frozen time is created with contrasts of rich greens, burnt orange, white and gray. The exchange between the nude and the viewer is both intimate and disturbing.

Edith Neff was born and lived in Philadelphia. She received her BFA in Painting from the Philadelphia College of Fine Arts (now the University of the Arts). In 1978, she joined the faculty at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where she taught figure painting and drawing until the time of her death. She received national acclaim for her paintings. Her work is in many public and corporate collections including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Delaware Art Museum, and the Minnesota Museum of Art.