Audrey Munson

The Sexy, Sordid Story of Audrey Munson, Probable Muse of Vizcaya's Mermaids Every morning at Vizcaya, a stone mermaid on the north face of the property's limestone barge seems to readily peer at the shining surface of the water as if to gaze at her reflection. Although the sculpture is widely known to be the work of the renowned sculptor Alexander Stirling Calder, the woman whose gentle yet probing stare he chose to immortalize has, for decades, remained a mystery. And because the siren's visage has changed significantly over the past 100 years due to erosion, some have speculated that her identity will never be known. However, in flipping back the pages of history, several clues hint at the identity of the model for the dissolving mermaid. They all seem to point, with eager fingers, to a woman who was once nicknamed "Miss Manhattan": Audrey Marie Munson. After being discovered by photographer Ralph Draper when she was about 19 years old, Munson quickl