When I was about the same age as these young athletes (runners) I drew them over and over again in the Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples. They are the key to painting the male nude I thought in the seventies and I still do. These bronze statues have unthreatening, sleek, agile bodies. They could be dancers. Art historians and archeo-logists tell us they are Roman copies of Hellenistic originals from the School of Lysippos, 6th century BC. To me they could be portraits of Olympic runners today.
The photographs were very difficult to achieve because the statues are displayed inappropriately, crowded into the centre of a darkened room surrounded by other statues of less importance. The solution to the photos seemed to be to accept their dire situation and use it and the other statues to tell a story or suggest relationships.
From the Villa of the Papyri, Herculanum