While you might not hump Audrey Munson ’s name , you ’ve almost sure see her likeness somewhere . Munson ’s figure can be found in bronze , copper , and marble across New York City , and , in fact , all over the state — MissouriandWisconsineach have a statue of her atop their State Capitol building , for example .
The simulation posed for some 200 creative person throughout her brief career , earning her nicknames like “ Miss Manhattan ” and “ the American Venus , ” along with a report as the most well - known muse of early 20th - century America . But after an endeavour at a film calling taper off out , Munson struggled to reclaim her stead among New York ’s creative person elite . Even as Munson ’s image lives on in sculpture and other works , her story is an often omit part of art history .
An Ideal Chorus Girl
Audrey Marie Munson wasbornon June 8 , 1891 , in Rochester , New York . Her father , Edgar Munson , was a real landed estate agent who was descended from one of the founders of New Haven , Connecticut , and her mother , Kittie Mahoney , was the daughter of Irish immigrants . Familial bliss , however , was short - inhabit — the couple split up when Audrey was only 6 , after Kittie caught wind instrument of Edgar ’s affair . They split up two years later .
After the rent , Kittie and Audrey begin a fresh life in Providence , Rhode Island . Kittie worked as a boarding house custodian , and Audrey eventually attended a Catholic high school called St. Francis Xavier Female Academy . It was there , under the tutelage of the Sisters of Mercy , that the young Munson learned how to blab and play the forte-piano , fiddle , harp , mandolin , and guitar .
By 1908 , a 17 - yr - sometime Munson had started performing in small appearance like the touring production of the musicalMarrying Mary . She and her mother relocated to New York the undermentioned year so the teenaged performing artist could engage a vocation in show business . On May 31 , 1909 , at 18 years old , Munson set foot on a Broadway stage for the first time , dressed in drag and playing the part of a footman in a melodious comedy calledThe Boy and the Girl .
Around this time , Florenz Ziegfeld , Jr. was beginning to make Wave with The Ziegfeld Follies , a series of excessive variety shows that often featured bombastic choruses of attractive unseasoned cleaning woman who came to be fuck as “ Ziegfeld little girl . ” Though Munson never do in one of Ziegfeld ’s review , her arresting looker and many musical talents made her an ideal chorus girl . She appeared in the choruses of similar productions , includingThe Girl and the Wizard , Girlies , andLa Belle Paree .
Had Munson continued on this path , it ’s possible her name would have fade into anonymity with the hundreds of other Broadway hopefuls whose careers petered out once they aged past their chorus - missy bloom . But a hazard meeting steered her in a drastically unlike direction .
From Performing to Posing
In late 1909 , Munson was window - shopping on fifth Avenue with her female parent when she noticed a man paying unusually close attention to her . After she confronted him , he invited her to pose for him in his photography studio .
“ We did not like the estimation at all , ” Munson latersaidin a 1913 audience for theNew York Sun . “ But discover out that he was one of the best photographers in town my female parent and I went . He call for some picture , state I had a head almost antique in melody , and began to tell his creative person friends about me . ”
The lensman was Felix Benedict Herzog , who wasalsoan accomplished electrical engineer , patent of invention attorney , and inventor . Though his theatrical role in Munson ’s career only go a few years — he become flat suddenly in April 1912 , after complications from intestinal surgical process — he jumpstarted her pivot from perform to posing .
As Munson posed for Herzog and his coevals , she used her newfound connector to search out more work . This streak of industriousness head her to the studio of sculptor Isidore Konti , who asked her to model for her first sculpture , The Three Graces , to be displayed in the primary ballroom of New York ’s Hotel Astor .
It was an over-the-top chance , but it came with a taking into custody : Munson would have to pose nude .
Making It to the Top
Though the ever - so - enterprising Munson was open to the estimate , her more conservative female parent waver to endorse it . But after three month of chaperoning her daughter ’s ( raiment ) model sessions with Konti , Kittie finally gave Audrey her blessing to bare it all for art ’s interest .
Munson quickly became one of New York ’s most prolific early model , lay for what she estimated was a total of 200 artists , including photographers , illustrator , painter , sculptors , and even a tapis weaver finch . If you ’ve been to New York , you ’ve almost in spades seen at least a few statues comport Munson ’s image , even if you did n’t agnize it — many Manhattan neighborhoodshaveat least one , and the Metropolitan Museum of Art houses another30or so . The caryatid supporting the main saloon ’s mantelpiece in one of J.P. Morgan ’s yachts werecarvedfrom Munson ’s likeness , and tapestries in George Vanderbilt ’s manse were plan in her image , too . Since some of the piece Munson modeled for were in camera commission , it ’s not clear where they end up ( or if they ’ve even survived various renovations and relocations ) .
As for those still conspicuously displayed , perhaps the most prominent patch isCivic Fame , a 25 - foot gilded copperstatueatop the Manhattan Municipal Building that Adolph Alexander Weinman design in 1913 . It ’s New York’ssecond largeststatue , dwarfed only by theStatue of Libertyherself .
Another golden version of Munson — bronze , this time — grace the top of the USSMaineNational Monument in Columbus Circle , honoringthe 260 sailor who died during the 1898 sinking feeling of the USSMainein Havana , Cuba . Funded by William Randolph Hearst in 1913 , the statue depict Columbia — the femalepersonificationof the United States — riding a seashell chariot pull by three horse - seahorse hybrid creatures calledhippocampi . Sculptor Attilio Piccirilliusedmetal from the sunken ship for parts of the memorial , which also let in a ship ’s prow stick out over a outpouring and a plaque that lists the victims ' name .
Munson is also immortalized in marble outside the New York Public Library ’s main branch , the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building . Frederick MacMonnies’sBeautydepicts a mostly au naturel Munson looking skywards as she leans against a horse .
By mid-1913 , Munson - inspired works were so prevailing around the urban center , theNew York Sunpublished aprofileon her titled “ All New York Bows to the Real Miss Manhattan ” in its June 8 issue .
But despite the hundred of artworks to which Audrey lent her likeness , her paychecks were n’t on equivalence with today ’s Instagram influencers . The going pace for a modeling at the time — nude or not — was 50 cents an 60 minutes , meaning the Munsons hold up a modest life . “ It was just enough to pay our rip , grocery bill and corrupt a few clothes once in a while … Almost nothing for amusement , ” Munsonsaidin a 1921 newsprint clause .
Between the countless hours of session , standing , or lying line of descent - still for creative person , Munson branched out into another manufacture : film .
A False Start in Film
On November 18 , 1915 , Thanhouser Company unblock the silent filmInspiration , and Munson became the first American picture star to seem bare in a non - pornographic celluloid . slackly based on Munson ’s own lifetime , Inspirationtells the story of a immature daughter expose in New York by a statue maker in need of a muse ; it even feature some real - living statue that Munson posed for . Though the motion picture was an overall success , it did stir up some dissent from viewing audience who balked at the nudity . Local officials actually arrested a dramaturgy handler in Ossining , New York , for showing the “ improper plastic film , ” and the city ’s Civic League established a censorship committee to prevent similar catastrophe from encounter in the future . “ I saw enough and catch all the ‘ divine guidance ’ I wanted , ” one membersaid .
Munson was characteristically undeterred . She and her mother moved to California , where the performing artist appear au naturel again in 1916’sPurity . It was another successful ( yet polarizing ) question picture , but it also mark the beginning of the end of Munson ’s meteorological salary increase to fame . Her next film , The Girl atomic number 8 ’ Dreams , was never released . The cause are nameless , but biographer James Bone hasspeculatedit may have been a dispute over cinema right wing — no fault of Munson ’s .
Struggling to Stay Above the Fray
The Munsons return to New York in late 1916 . Audrey spent the next two years caught up in the high society circle of New York and Newport , Rhode Island , and allegedly struck up a relationship with transport heir Hermann Oelrichs , Jr. Her motherclaimedthe two had actually married , though there ’s no phonograph record to underpin this .
Whatever feelings Munson had for her purported beau turn turned by early 1919 . That January , she sent a strangeletterto the U.S. Department of State insist the German government ’s considerable investment funds in the film industry was preventing her from booking any roles . She listed Oelrichs , Jr. and other well - get laid German - Americans as carbon monoxide - conspirators in this plot , arguing that they discriminated against her because she was come down from former British settlers . “ As you jazz the Kaisers [ sic ] $ 25,000,000 in the Motion Picture Industry has cast me out of employment as I am an American of English origin dating back to the Mayflower days , ” she compose .
Nothing arrive of Munson ’s groundless accusations , but her malignment of “ the German ” and “ the German - Jew ” in the varsity letter hinted at a maturate anti - Semiticstreakboth Munson and her mother made evident throughout other correspondence .
thing unraveled further in February , when Munson and her mother were brought in for questioning about Dr. Walter K. Wilkins ’s murder of his wife , Julia . The pressreportedthat Wilkins , who own a embarkation house where the Munsons had stayed , had been carrying on an affair with a “ pretty young woman ” many assumed was Audrey . Shedeniedany relationship and even vouched for his character , but the onslaught of negative publicity certainly did n’t facilitate her calling .
In 1921 , Munson attempted to reclaim control of her reputation by telling her life story in 20 serialized articles entitledThe Queen of the Artists ’ Studiosin Hearst’sNew York Americannewspaper . The series was meant to drum up publicity for her new motion-picture show , Heedless Moths , also ground on Munson ’s lifespan . But the film producer only used Munson herself for a few shots , and gave the legal age of her role to fledgling Jane Thomas . It was another instance of others enjoying and profiting from Munson ’s image with slight regard for the charwoman behind it — an inescapable musical theme of her vocation as a model and muse — and her written material shine her despondence .
“ I am wondering if many of my readers have not stood before a masterpiece of lovely sculpture or a singular painting of a young girl , her very abandonment of draperies accentuating rather than diminishing her reserve and pureness , and involve themselves the question , ' Where is she now , this model who has been so beautiful ? ' ” shewrotein one clause . “ ' What has been her reward ? Is she happy and prosperous , or is she distressing and forlorn , her dish run , depart only memories in its wake ? ' ”
Not long after that , Munson establish a wide publicized hunting for “ the sodding man . ” But Munson had grown up respect her own English - American peach above all else , and her idea that wedlock should be “ for the commodity of the airstream ” reflected her eugenic , xenophobic , and anti - Semite tendency . Though she didchoosea married man — Joseph J. Stevenson , a World War I pilot and wealth contractile organ from Chicago — they never really pursued their relationship .
By 1922 , a dispirited , hapless Munson was living with her mother in Mexico , New York , north of Syracuse . In May of that yr , at 28 geezerhood old , the former example undertake to swallowed mercury - based poison in an attack to give-up the ghost by suicide . She survived , but she did n’t hear to return to the calcium light .
A Quiet New Life
For almost a decade , Munson hold out with her mother in upstate New York , where her mental health further deteriorated . In 1931 , citing depression , delusions , hallucination , and more , Kittie committed her daughter to an mental hospital .
Shortly after she turned 40 , Munson move into the St. Lawrence State Hospital in Ogdensburg , New York . Except for a brief Erolia minutilla in a nursing home , she remain at that infirmary for the next 65 years , and her female parent ’s dying in 1958 marked the beginning of a 26 - yr period with no visitor . Then , in 1984 , Munson ’s half - pal ’s daughter , Darlene Bradley , trackedher down and took her father to be reunited with his long - lost sister . Bradley continued to pay regular visits until her elderly aunt break on February 20 , 1996 , at 104 years erstwhile .
Munson was cremated , and her ash were commit in her father ’s grave at New Haven Cemetery in New Haven , New York . The tombstone listed Edgar Munson , his 2nd married woman , Cora , and their girl , Vivian — but for 20 age , there was no mention that the former star was laid to rest there , too .
In 2016 , New Haven Ithiel Town shop clerk Debra Allen and town historiographer Marie Strongdecidedit was time to abide by Munson ’s bequest with a headstone of her own . Since they could n’t apportion townsfolk funds for that purpose , they entered and won legion county fair baking contests . The two spent their prize money on a simple , elegant tombstoneetchedwith flowers and the wordsActress & Model — the last bit of stone bearing attestor to the ageless bequest of America ’s first supermodel .
