THE TRAGIC LIFE OF MODEL AUDREY MUNSON

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V24 2021 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 24, Number 3, January 17, 2021, Article 14

In 2016 we discussed a new book on the life of model and actress Audrey Munson, who modelled for coin artist Adolph Weinman. A new article in the Washington Post quotes the book author James Bones and numismatist Dave Bowers. Here's an excerpt. -Editor

Q. David Bowers has two passions: coins — he’s one of the country’s leading numismatists — and the early history of Hollywood. In Audrey Munson, those two passions intersected.

Many coin collectors believe the artists’ model was the inspiration for the figure on the Mercury head dime, designed in 1916 by Adolph Weinman. And Munson starred in a handful of famed silent films.

The first was the now-lost 1915 movie, “Inspiration.” In the 1980s, Bowers was researching the history of the studio that made it, Thanhouser. He was determined to trace the lives of as many studio figures as possible. Miraculously, he found Audrey Munson.

Munson was in a mental hospital in Ogdensburg, N.Y., across the St. Lawrence River from Canada. She had been committed to the asylum in 1931. Munson lived there until her death in 1996 at age 104.

Said Bowers, who lives in New Hampshire: “She lived what I call a tragic life, a life that could have been happier.”

I was hoping for a happy ending for this groundbreaking woman, who inspired artists as a model then appeared unashamedly nude in movies, including 1916’s “Purity,” written by Washington author Clifford Howard.

Munson was cheated by movie producers. Then in 1919, the landlord of the Long Island, N.Y., boardinghouse she and her mother, Kittie, lived in murdered his wife, allegedly because of his obsession with Audrey. Scandal ensued.

Said Bone: “My take is she was a vulnerable girl from a very poor background, boosted into the spotlight — like so many Hollywood stars — who collapsed under the spotlight. She’s the first Hollywood burnout, really.”

Munson was the model for another Weinman work, a stunning sculpture called “Descending Night.” A bronze copy is in the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Audrey Munson posed for the McMillan Memorial Fountain

And just inside the gates of the McMillan Reservoir, a block off North Capitol Street, you will find Audrey Munson in triplicate. Herbert Adams’s monumental fountain honoring Sen. James McMillan depicts her as the Three Graces.

The bronze fountain has seen better days. It’s not functional and one figure is missing some fingertips. But as I looked at it the other day, I tried to imagine the beautiful, troubled woman who was its inspiration.

"One can legitimately state that Adurey Munson modeled for Adolph Weinman at sometime or another. This is noted in his archival papers... Being an artist's model does not mean the model's likeness is on a completed work of art. Most art images are composites and only individual portraits - usually made on commission by the subject - are likenesses. Munson was among the bits and pieces from multiple models and ideas that resulted in the final artistic product."

I made a correction suggested by Dave Bowers - Weinman designed the dime in 1916. -Editor

To read the earlier E-Sylum article, see:
NEW BOOK: THE CURSE OF BEAUTY (https://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v19n15a04.html)