In Colombia, the conservative policies of La Regeneración, as championed by Rafael Nuñez, ushered in a new era of political and religious conservatism that paradoxically ran counter to the cosmopolitan ambitions of this new Republic. Against the backdrop of these nationbuilding and institution-building efforts, the Escuela de Bellas Artes reflected the cosmopolitanism of La Regeneracion, through its leadership of internationally trained artists. As Director of the Escuela de Bellas Artes, Epifanio Garay introduced the practice of the live nude model in 1894, and the representation of the female nude in painting in 1899. Through a case study of Garay, a protégé of Nuñez, I argue how the inclusion of the female nude not only established the legitimacy and professionalism of the Escuela de Bellas Artes, and with it the cosmopolitanism of La Regeneración, but also exposed the contradictory role of the female nude as both an academic instrument, which Colombian artists like Garay learned in Paris, and a force of change in the way in which it exposed the limits of religious conservativism and social morality, thus transforming the “academic” nude into the embodiment of cultural tensions in a country, like Colombia, in the midst of transition.