Richard Theodore Titlebaum 1939 - 2007
American, painter

Richard Titlebaum's early art (completed prior to 1990) was dominated by highly stylized symbolic elements. His nude scenes of Ancient Troy, Greece, Rome, and the Middle East featured the traditional male athletic physique with the genitalia done in a prefunctory style. However, he had always done life sketches during his career, including self-portraits. Most of these works were unrelenting, starkly honest depictions of the human body and its multitudinous imprefections.

By the early 1990's, Titlebaum had achieved a significant measure of success with his art works, winning awards at various art shows and selling a fair number of works on a yearly basis. He remained committed to improving his art, especially his homoerotic art, and he realized that this improvement could come only through the use of life models.

Life drawing classes provided Titlebaum with basic tools to expand his oeuvre. He realized that he needed a cooperative model who would allow him to be sketched and studied to serve as a prototype for future art works. A relatively good-looking trim (but not muscular) man in his late 20s agreed to go over to Titlebaum's studio for an afternoon and pose. “Charles” was a relatively well-known member of the gay community in Oakland County (MI), but not a model or entertainer. Titlebaum made sketches and took a variety of measurements to enable him to use Charles as a subject in all his future work. One man present at the modelling session as an observer was surprised at how clinical Titlebaum's attitude was throughout. However, the artist viewed this as a unique opportunity, and was able to use the information and the image of Charles to produce a series of unforgettable homoerotic images.

Click here to view Richard Titlebaum's biography.
Go to Saatchi Gallery Online to view more work.

Richard Titlebaum's use of Life Models
Anita Baker-Blocker