Audrey Munson (June 8, 1891 – February 20, 1996) was an American artist's model and film actress, known variously as "Miss Manhattan," "the Exposition Girl," and "American Venus." She was the model or inspiration for more than 15 statues in New York City and appeared in four silent films.

Audrey Marie Munson was born in Rochester, New York on June 8, 1891 – not in Mexico, New York as is sometimes reported because her father is from that town and the family did live there. Her parents, Edgar Munson and Katherine "Kittie" Mahaney, divorced when she was young and Audrey and her mother moved to New York City. In 1906, when Audrey was 15 years old, she was spotted in the street by photographer Ralph Draper, who in turn introduced her to his friend, sculptor Isidore Konti. Konti persuaded the young woman to model for him. For the next decade Munson became the model of choice for a host of sculptors and painters in New York City. By 1915 she was so well established that she was chosen by Alexander Stirling Calder as the model of choice for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE) held that year. She posed for three quarters of the sculpture at that event as well as for numerous paintings and murals.

In 1916, probably as a result of her exposure in California at the PPIE, Munson moved to California and entered the nascent film industry, starring in four silent films. The first, Inspiration, the story of a sculptor’s model, was the first time that a woman appeared fully nude on film. The censors were reluctant to ban the film, fearing they would also have to ban Renaissance art. Munson's films were a box office success, while reviews were very polarized. Only a single print of one of Munson's films, Purity, has survived.

The year 1919 found Munson back in New York, living with her mother in a boarding house owned by Dr. Walter Wilkins. Wilkins fell in love with her, murdering his wife, Julia, so he could be available for marriage. Although Munson and her mother had left New York prior to the murder, the police still wished to question them, resulting in a nationwide hunt for them. They were finally questioned in Toronto, Canada, where they testified that they had moved out because Mrs. Wilkins had requested it. This satisfied the police, but the negative publicity generated by the case effectively ended Munson’s career as a model and actress. Wilkins was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to the electric chair. He hanged himself in his prison cell before the sentence could be carried out.

By 1920 Munson, unable to find work anywhere, returned with her mother to the town of Mexico, New York and worked for a while selling kitchen utensils door to door. On May 27, 1922, she swallowed a solution of bichloride of mercury in an attempt to take her own life. That was the start of her mental illness and paranoia. In 1931 a judge ordered the 39-year-old Munson into a psychiatric facility for treatment. She was to remain there for the next 65 years, until her death in 1996 at the age of 104.

Star Maiden (1915) by A. S. Calder

Fountain of the Setting Sun by Weinman

Civic Fame (1913) by Weinman

Autumn

Isidor and Ida Straus Memorial, Straus Park

Pacific

Sculpture

Herbert Adams

• Priestess of Culture (1914) – PPIE, now in Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco

Robert Ingersoll Aitken

• Earth (1915) – PPIE - Court of the Universe
• Panama-Pacific International Exposition medal (1915)
• Figure on doors of the Greenhut & John W. Gates Mausoleums

Karl Bitter

• Pomona or Abundance (1915) – Pulitzer Fountain in Grand Army Plaza, NYC
• Venus de Milo ("Venus with arms") for Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

Alexander Stirling Calder

• Star Maiden (1915) – PPIE - Court of the Universe, now in the Oakland Museum
• Eastern Hemisphere (1915) – PPIE - Fountain of Energy

Daniel Chester French

• Melvin Brothers Memorial (1908) – Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, Massachusetts
• Commerce and Jurisprudence (1910) – Federal Building, Cleveland Ohio
• Genius of Creation and Eve (1915) – PPIE, plaster now at Chesterwood in Stockbridge, Massachusetts
• Brooklyn and Manhattan – Brooklyn Museum of Art, NYC
• Memory – Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
• Mourning Victory – Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
• Spirit of Life (1914) – Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana. Newark Museum, Newark, New Jersey
• Evangeline, Longfellow Memorial (1912) – Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Trask Memorial (1915) – Saratoga Springs, New York
• Wisconsin (1912) – figure on top of Wisconsin State Capitol dome

Sherry Edmundson Fry

• Torch Bearer (1915) – PPIE
• Muse and Pan (1915) – PPIE
• Maidenhood – Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC; Brookgreen Gardens, South Carolina
• pediment (1913) – Frick Collection Building, NYC

Albert Jaegers

• Rain (1915) – PPIE
• Harvest (1915) – PPIE

Carl Augustus Heber

• Figures on tablet outside the Little Theatre
• Spirit of Commerce – Manhattan Bridge, NYC

Isidore Konti

• Mother and Child – private collection of Richard & Lydia Kaeyer
• Three Muses – Hudson River Museum
• Three Graces Y– lobby of the Hotel Astor, NYC
• Pomona – Konti finished the work after Karl Bitter was killed
• Figure within the Column of Progress (1915) – PPIE
• Widowhood
• Genius of Immortality (1911) – Hudson River Museum

Evelyn Beatrice Longman

• Fountain of Ceres (1915) – PPIE - Court of Four Seasons
• Consecration (1915) – PPIE, now in the Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut

Augustus Lukeman

• Ida Straus and Isidor Straus Memorial – Straus Park, Manhattan, NYC

Frederick MacMonnies

• Niche figure – New York Public Library, NYC

Allen Newman

• Music of the Waters Fountain – Riverside Drive, NYC

Attilio Piccirilli

• Alone (1915) – PPIE
• Maine Memorial, figure on top and figure at base – Central Park, NYC
• Duty and Sacrifice (1913) – Firemen’s Memorial, NYC

Firio Piccirilli

• Fountain of Spring (1915) – PPIE

Frederick Ruckstull

• South Carolina Women’s Monument (1911) – Columbia, South Carolina

Adolph Alexander Weinman

• Descending Night – PPIE - Fountain of Setting Sun and various museums
• Civic Fame (1913) – figure on top of the Manhattan Municipal Building
• US Walking Liberty Half Dollar, and possible model for the Mercury dime (both 1916)
• Day and Night (1906) – figures from Pennsylvania Station, NYC

Albert G. Wenzel

• Madam Butterfly
• Figure over the proscenium (1903) – New Amsterdam Theater, NYC

Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney

• The Fountain of El Dorado (1915) – PPIE

Munson in Inspiration, 1915

Munson in Purity 1916

Others sculptures at Panama-Pacific International Exposition

• Fountain of Ceres, Court of Four Seasons
• Fountain of Rising Sun, Court of Universe
• Pedestal & Friezes, Columns of Human Progress
• Air, Court of Universe
• Spirit of Creation, Court of Universe
• Nature, Feast of Sacrifice, Court of Four Seasons
• Pylon Groups, Festival Hall
• Conception, Wonderment, and Contemplation, Palace of the Fine Arts

Filmography

All of the films Munson appeared in were thought to be lost, but a copy of Purity was recovered from an archive in France in 2004.

• Inspiration (1915) the first known movie in which a woman removed all her clothes
• Purity (1916)
• Girl O'Dreams (1917)
• Heedless Moths (1921)