Naked Ambition

Nudes are a classic area of study for the art-academy crowd, but rare is the school that names burlesque performer Dita Von Teese as its muse. Such is the case, though, at the New York Academy of Art, which on Wednesday will have its 17th annual "Take Home a Nude" auction at Phillips de Pury & Company's headquarters at the Milk Galleries. Hosted by artists Will Cotton, Jenny Saville, Eric Fischl, and April Gornik, as well as art dealer Simon de Pury, hotelier Andre Balazs, actors Liev Schreiber and Naomi Watts, and, of course, Ms. Von Teese, the auction is bound to raise some eyebrows.

"Two years ago, Dita performed at 'Take Home a Nude' wearing $5 million worth of diamonds," the chairwoman of the academy's board of trustees, Eileen Guggenheim, said. While there's no guarantee of a repeat performance, attendees will get a chance to bid on some of the juicier items on the market, including paintings by Messrs. Cotton and Fischl and Jamie Wyeth.

The New York Academy of Art was the first graduate school in America devoted solely to the study of the human figure. Founded in 1982 by artists, scholars, and arts patrons, most notably Andy Warhol and Tom Wolfe, it has worked to offer an alternative to contemporary visual art through representational painting.

Warhol in particular felt that his skills as an artist had been hindered by a lack of this kind of technical training and by not having been steeped in the great traditions of art history from an early age. Warhol, whose legacy will be honored during the school's 25th anniversary, saw the Academy as a means of providing that to future generations of artists. The Academy is located in a five-story landmark, an 1861 building on Franklin Street in TriBeCa. Students have extensive access to an impressive collection of plaster casts of Classical and Renaissance sculptures in the soaring, Corinthian-columned hall of its headquarters. There are six classrooms, student studios, anatomical study aids including rare skeletons and plaster casts specially prepared from cadavers, and an extensive library. Funds raised from "Take Home a Nude" will support the scholarship fund as well as the school's continuing education program.

In January 2002, Prince Charles conferred his royal patronage on the New York Academy of Art. It was the first time he has bestowed this honor on a visual arts institution in America. Still, the Academy's endowment fund relies on events such as "Take Home a Nude."

Ms. Guggenheim, who came up with the event's name, said that it started in the early 1990s, when she realized the volume of gorgeous nude drawings and paintings that the talented MFA candidates were producing. "We thought, these are gorgeous and really salable," she said. "Naturally, we needed scholarship funds. We were a young school, so it seemed obvious at the time." While the paintings that are part of the live auction are mainly nudes, there will also be a silent auction featuring landscape paintings, photography, and some sculpture.

Ms. Guggenheim expects attendance at this year's event to be more than 650. "It is considered by some savvy buyers as a 'sample sale' for art, because everything is beautifully framed in frames donated by master framers and very reasonably priced — as well as ready to hang up," she said. "It is ideal for starting collectors."