WPI Oral History: Peggy Steffans Sarno on Tom Wesselmann

Peggy Steffans Sarno is an American actress and model known for her collaborations with her husband, Joseph Sarno, the “Ingmar Bergman of porn.” She counted Claire and Tom Wesselmann as close family friends, and participated as a portrait model in Tom’s Smoker series. Highlights of her oral history include memories of New York’s arts and cultural scene in the 1960s, discussions of Wesselmann’s oeuvre in the context of American social and sexual norms, and reflections on her personal connection to Wesselmann’s body of work today. KEYWORDS: Pop Art, Cooper Union, nude portraiture, pornography, Claire Wesselmann, 20th-century American art, Mouth series, Smoker series, Joe Sarno, cinema, Polly Platt, artists’ models, artists’ muses, A Life in Dirty Movies