Aaron Bogan, a professional art model and illustrator originally from New Jersey, moved to New York City last year from the Bay Area, attracted in part by what he described as an “abundant” modeling scene. For the past 20 years, Bogan has been a life drawing model, a physically demanding contract-based profession.
“Figure models are the blue-collar workers of the arts,” Bogan said. “I don’t think anybody knows the amount of physicality and mental fortitude it takes to do what we do on stage.”
In California, Bogan was part of the Bay Area Models Guild, which claims to represent some of the highest-paid figure models in the country, negotiating a minimum $50 hourly wage for their models. Though Bogan said he finds himself working more hours in New York City than ever before, he is earning just $22 an hour, above the minimum wage but below the living wage at standard full-time hours. On the night he spoke to Hyperallergic, Bogan had worked intermittently from 9 am until around 10 pm. He said he models six or seven days a week.
A typical three-hour open drawing session begins with artists filing into a studio arranged expectantly toward an area where a model will disrobe. Nude, the model contorts into poses, ranging from sitting cross-legged on the stage to elaborate stances involving chairs, poles, and, for Bogan, katana swords. The relationship between the model and the student is demarcated by a stage, and for the artist, tucked behind a sketchbook or easel, the hours go by quickly, almost prayerfully. For the model, the work can be a gratifying form of artistic expression or meditation, but the postures are physically exerting. Standing poses, Bogan said, led him to develop a painful ulcer on his leg, which required a $430 emergency room visit earlier last October. He went back to work the next day.
“We’ve all been through pain on the inside and outside, and we bring it all on the stage,” Bogan said. “We’re all smiling, and we’re all doing everything on stage, but nobody knows that when you’re on stage, it looks like you’re stoic, but on the inside, you’re breaking.”
A series of sketches created by Melody Lu during a life drawing session (photo Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic)
Despite playing a consequential role in visual arts institutions across the country, art models, also known as figure models or life drawing models, are struggling to cobble together a living between unreliable hours and varying wages, according to nine models interviewed by Hyperallergic. Many of the models, most of whom are artists themselves, reported feeling overlooked in the art world despite their prevalence in educational institutions.
On Wednesday, December 17, members of the Art Students League, which currently contracts 80–90 models depending on class needs, will vote on a new board. As the institution marks its 150th year, the newly formed Art Students League Model Collective is asking incoming leadership to hear their concerns for improved labor conditions, including raising their $22/hour rate, offering more stable working hours, and providing up-to-date heaters and amenities.
The models interviewed by Hyperallergic, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of losing work, also hope that sharing their stories will lead to increased respect for the profession.
Anna Veedra, an art model who does not work for the Art Students League, is leading the push for change at the institution through her advocacy organization, The Model Tea Project. Veedra is sending a survey to art models across the country, an initiative she told Hyperallergic would “provide the model community with data to match their lived experience.”
Veedra said she prefers flying to California to take jobs, including at animation studios, rather than working in New York, where institutions like Pratt, Parsons, and the New School pay around $20–25 an hour, according to models who work there. Hyperallergic has reached out to those institutions for comment.
In preliminary data shared with Hyperallergic from 41 models heavily concentrated in New York City and at the Art Students League, over half of the respondents reported being unable to save any money for retirement or emergencies. About half of the models said they relied on public assistance programs, including food stamps and Medicaid. Most models surveyed by Veedra earned below $35,000 per year, including supplemental income.
Some models Hyperallergic interviewed had other jobs. A few relied on bookings entirely.
Bill Delaney’s “Figures with Mirror” featuring models Anna Veedra and Margaret H Baker (image courtesy the artist)
In a statement, a spokesperson for The Art Students League said the atelier-style institution was “committed to providing a safe and inclusive working environment for the models who devote their time and expertise to aiding the practice of life drawing in our studios.”
“Models are vital members of our community and the League’s administration regularly holds meetings where models can share feedback and voice concerns,” the spokesperson said. The institution did not answer questions about whether it had plans to raise pay for models or confirm its hourly rate for models.
The Art Students League was established in the 1870s in part to increase opportunities for artists to draw life models. A century and a half later, models are hoping it could set a high standard for the industry.
One model who works at the Art Students League and spoke to Hyperallergic called the pay “insulting for the type of work that it is.” Another model said he felt the institution “completely take[s] us for granted.”
Robin Hoskins, an art model from Cincinnati who works at art schools across New York City as an independent contractor, said she became so “desperate” that she was searching for retail jobs earlier this year.
“It’s becoming almost impossible to put together a schedule with consistent enough hours to be able to cover rent and utilities and groceries and train rides and all of that,” Hoskins said. “I’m not even talking about being able to go see a play when I want to … I’m just talking about bare minimum rent, food, train rides.”
Hoskins, who has modeled for the last 14 years, said she has a similar regimen to that of a professional athlete, including soaking in Epsom salts, stretching, and icing her feet after holding standing poses.
“We want to be understood and appreciated for the work we’re putting in,” Hoskins. “What we contribute to the arts is every bit as important and should hold just as much weight as anyone else who works in the arts.”
Art models haven’t always struggled to survive, according to New York University Associate Professor Emmelyn Butterfield-Rosen, an expert in 19th-century European art. In the 1800s, at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in France, art models held a status comparable to that of art professors and received a similar stipend, she explained.
“The idea of art school really does derive from the idea of a group of people coming together around a nude model,” Butterfield-Rosen said in an interview with Hyperallergic.
During the Italian Renaissance, Butterfield-Rosen added, schools were formed around nude models, and the practice became “institutionalized around the world.”
“The idea of an academic art education is that you become an artist through this confrontation with the naked body of a human being, and it’s the act of drawing the model that gives you the kind of intellectual skills for being an artist,” said Butterfield-Rosen.
One such primary skill, as described by Butterfield-Rosen, was long thought to be “the capacity to portray an animate human being endowed with consciousness given by God.” But this idea about artmaking was less prevalent by the end of the 19th century, and models’ status and pay deteriorated during that time period.
Art model Crystal Durant as portrayed in John A. Varriano’s painting “Crystal Vignette” (2023) (image courtesy Crystal Durant)
Crystal Durant, a 60-year-old life model, writer, and arts educator who has worked at the Art Students League, said students have taken photos of her while she was naked, though that is strictly prohibited by the institution. She said other students have hit on her after class.
Sometimes, during long breaks, Durant engages with the students who are drawing her. “I would hop off the stand and walk around and look at people’s paintings and drawings, and they’re like, ‘Oh, what do you know about art?’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I’m multi-degreed,’” she recalled.
“Another subtle, kind of racist thing that I have to deal with all the time, because they’re going to assume you’re just some dumb model,” added Durant, who is Black.
Durant described models as the “most important people in the building” at the Art Students League because they draw artists to the institution.
But when issues arise, models have not always felt comfortable voicing their concerns to administrators, teachers, or session moderators.
“We’re being told, oh, we can just do whatever we want, and they have to deal with it,” one Art Students League model told Hypeallergic. “But then on the flip side, we’ve also been told models are 1099 [independent contractors]; you’re not entitled to anything.”
In the Bay Area, models face a different work ecosystem. The Bay Area Models Guild, a nonprofit organization founded in 1946 by Florence Wysinger “Flo” Allen, has made $50 per hour for a minimum booking of three hours the norm among San Francisco’s arts institutions. The guild, which provides many Bay Area art schools with models, also advocates for models in cases of harassment or nonpayment.
As the guild’s mediator, Prudence Toliva, an art model of 40 years and a single parent living in Oakland, liaises directly with San Francisco’s arts organizations.
“If a person didn’t pay somebody, I call them over and over and over and over again, until I get to talk to somebody to try to figure it out,” Toliva said.
In one case, a menstruating model left a session when a client asked why she was wearing bottoms. In the past, it may have been accepted to ask a model to tuck their tampon strings inside their bodies, Toliva said.
In a typical figure sketching session, artists position themselves around a stage where a model disrobes. (photo Isa Farfan/Hyperallergic, artwork by Melody Lu)
Toliva said arts institutions have been receptive to paying $50 per hour, a rate that has gone up three times in the past three years. The guild also enforces a seven-day cancellation policy. Even with some of the highest rates, Toliva said they live under the poverty line and don’t know if they can afford to live in the Bay Area in the future.
Titania Kumeh, a model and former journalist living in Oakland, also makes a standard rate of $50, though she doesn’t belong to the guild. Kumeh credits the organization with raising pay across the board for models in the area.
“When you think about transportation costs and medical bills and models who are getting hip surgery or have broken limbs, I really wish that the rate and benefits reflected the labor that models are actually doing,” Kumeh said.
Another concern Titania raised about her work was that some artists who portray her and her fellow models’ likenesses sell their works for thousands of dollars, and the models compensation doesn’t change.
Hoskins, the art model who has worked in New York City for 14 years, said that she wishes people would appreciate the elegance and stamina required to pose for artists.
“We’re human beings, you know, and we want to be understood and appreciated for the work we’re putting in,” Hoskins said. “But, most importantly, we need to be able to have a dignified wage and be able to earn a decent living, just like anyone else in any other successful profession.”
