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In all the years that we've been running My Modern Met, if there's one trend that stood out from the rest, it's art made out of books. Remember Guy Laramee, the artist who meticulously carves out encyclopedias to create incredible landscapes or Brian Dettmer, aka The Book Surgeon, the man who uses knives, tweezers and surgical tools to form unbelievable sculptures?

Rachael Ashe is an emerging, self-taught artist who also sees the beauty in books. The Vancouver-based artist creates lovely works that all have a nature element to them.

"I live in Vancouver, BC, a city surrounded by mountains, forests, and the ocean. Nature is ever present within the city, but I also don't have to go far in order to immerse myself fully in natural surroundings," she tells us. "I think incorporating imagery of birds, trees, and even using found objects from nature in my artwork is a natural byproduct of the environment in which I live."

Below you'll find a selection of her work along with some photos she took at a workshop she teaches to adults on how to make altered books. It's fun to see how her students pin, cut, carve and fold pages!

Rachael Ashe's website

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In all the years that we've been running My Modern Met, if there's one trend that stood out from the rest, it's art made out of books. Remember Guy Laramee, the artist who meticulously carves out encyclopedias to create incredible landscapes or Brian Dettmer, aka The Book Surgeon, the man who uses knives, tweezers and surgical tools to form unbelievable sculptures?

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This page is used by Events Made Easy. Don't change it, don't use it in your menu's, don't delete it. Just make sure the EME setting called 'Events page' points to this page. EME uses this page to render any and all events, locations, bookings, maps, ... anything.

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by Marilyn Rose

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From day one, Print Studio has been a site for finding new ways to use old books, as visitors have copied and pasted images from the illustrious Reanimation Library's collection of previously discarded books. During several workshops held over the past two weeks, artist and educator Katerina Lanfranco gave participants in her altered book workshop even more tools for manipulating and repurposing books. Here's a brief look at just some of the altered book projects begun at the workshops:

Interested in publication technologies, past and present? Today at 2:30 p.m., artist, bookmaker, and set designer Sarah Crowner will lead a discussion of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray's 1917 The Blind Man, a periodical comprising negative Photostat. (Photostat was an early projection photocopier.) The program, organized as part of Triple Canopy's Miscellaneous Uncatalogued Material series at Print Studio, will take visitors up to the MoMA Library to view and discuss materials and related issues to printmaking technologies past and present, public discourse, and publications.

We also invite you to join us this Friday, at either 12:00 p.m. or 2:30 p.m., for a paper-making workshop with Dieu Donné Papermill. Dieu Donné's artistic director, Paul Wong, will teach participants the art of hand paper making, taking inspiration from a project by Print/Out featured artist James Siena. Participants will work with paper pulp and stenciling to create their own artworks.

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MoMA | Altered Books and More at Print Studio

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From day one, Print Studio has been a site for finding new ways to use old books, as visitors have copied and pasted images from the illustrious Reanimation Library's collection of previously discarded books. During several workshops held over the past two weeks, artist and educator Katerina Lanfranco gave participants in her altered book workshop even more tools for manipulating and repurposing books.

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Presidential Courage and the Web of Power

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Presidential Courage and the Web of Power

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by Charity Rouse

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Altering a book is a great way to explore your creativity and give new life to an unwanted book. You can adapt just about any technique or material to create a unique work of art from a book.

'But I'm not creative', you say. Of course you are!

If drawing is not for you, use image transfer, collage, or painting techniques to create a variety of images. Or, try something even simpler than that: fold, cut, tear, or sew to create a 3-dimensional structure or a pop-up book.

There are so many options and the best part is that if you don't like what you've created, you can tear out those pages and try something new.

Need a few ideas to help you get started? Check out the Library's Flickr page to see altered books from previous displays: http://www.flickr.com/photos/topekalibrary/collections/72157625701917912/.

To have your altered book displayed in the library, please bring it to the Sabatini Gallery before 9pm on Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. The books will be on display from Nov. 6, 2012 - Jan. 2, 2013.

Questions? Stop by or call the Sabatini Gallery at 785-580-4515.

Brea Black is the Art Librarian and Book Arts Curator in the Alice C. Sabatini Gallery. Her favorite thing is to share the wonderful world of artists' books with the community. She also leads the Arts & Crafts team and teaches workshops on bookmaking, altered books, and a variety of crafty topics.

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2012 Altered Books Display in the Library | Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library

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Give a discarded book a new life by transforming it into a work of art. Anyone is welcome to bring an altered book to the Gallery before 9pm on Monday, Oct. 29, 2012. The books will be on display in the library from Nov. 6, 2012 - Jan. 2, 2013.

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SCROLL DOWN TO FIND THE SECTION YOU NEED.  I HAVE GROUPED DIFFERENT COLLECTIONS OF ART FOR YOU TO LOOK AT.

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SCROLL DOWN TO FIND THE SECTION YOU NEED.  I HAVE GROUPED DIFFERENT COLLECTIONS OF ART FOR YOU TO LOOK AT.

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How to make a paper box that opens and closes

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How to make a paper box in a box.

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How to make Box in Box (Multi storage box)  : DIY Crafts - HD

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🤬 out pages

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How To Make Flip Out Pages For Altered Books or Junk Journals

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Pop up pages

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Making things pop up from your altered book is fun and easy. I will show you how to do it. Come on! Find an old book at the thrift shop or library sale and make it into a totally custom art journal with me. Visit www.Suzet.com to see more about my work.

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Vintage altered book tutorial by Maria Lillepruun

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Turning pages into a pocket

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Easy to make Altered Book, Junk Journal, Art Journal or Glue Book

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How to add a pop up - could be in a book or a box.

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How to Make a City Pop-Up Card | Pop-Up Cards

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Altered Books

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Masks

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Boxes

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When the Greeks settled in Egypt, with Alexander the Great's conquest and later, under Ptolemaic rule, they adopted diverse aspects of the local lifestyle, their funerary practices among them. The traditional Egyptian mask, which protected the mummy's head and shoulders, was altered to a large extent, giving rise to a kind of covering made of several layers of plaster-impregnated cloth that was quite thick, upon which the facial features of the deceased were modeled and then painted with vivid colors. Our mask demonstrates how the eyes are treated with lines that have become stereotyped and it is very different from the traditional form. Other features have been idealized as well, the eyebrows, nose, mouth and ears. Wearing an ample necklace made with attractive weaving in abstract decorative patterns, the decorated headdress has lateral drapes painted with large figures of Osiris seated on his throne resting on a frieze composed of various uraeus; that is to say, representations of cobras, a symbol of power. The sides of the headdress are ornamented with two winged goddesses carrying solar disks, one raises her right hand and the other stands, with wings spread open over a tabernacle, completed with two diminutive figures of Osiris standing between two deities in the form of mummies with animal heads. On the head there is a solar disk in relief, which circles behind with an Isis Knot that culminates in a couple of uraeus, where one wears the crown of Upper Egypt and the other, the crown of Lower Egypt.

Recommended

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Egyptian Mummy Mask - Google Arts & Culture

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When the Greeks settled in Egypt, with Alexander the Great's conquest and later, under Ptolemaic rule, they adopted diverse aspects of the local lifestyle, their funerary practices among them.

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Germán Cueto comparte el sentimiento nacionalista del triunfo revolucionario, pero su educación y sus contactos en Europa con los artistas de vanguardia de la primera década del siglo XX, como Picasso, Brancusi, Pablo Gargollo y su prima María Gutierrez Blanchard, hacen de él un artista cuya concepción queda hermanada al internacionalismo, estilos que practicó con gran innovación de técnicas en Méxic, por lo que hoy su obra es reconocida a nivel mundial. Vid. Duarte Sanchez, María Estela. Gliptoteca. Escultura en el Museo Nacional de Arte. España: INBA, MUNAL, 2016. pag. 71

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Mask I - Germán Cueto - Google Arts & Culture

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Germán Cueto comparte el sentimiento nacionalista del triunfo revolucionario, pero su educación y sus contactos en Europa con los artistas de vanguardia de la primera década del siglo XX, como Picasso, Brancusi, Pablo Gargollo y su prima María Gutierrez Blanchard, hacen de él un artista cuya concepción queda hermanada al internacionalismo, estilos que practicó con gran innovación de técnicas en Méxic, por lo que hoy su obra es reconocida a nivel mundial.

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Kolam is a dance drama of rural Sri Lanka. Just like several other names for theatre traditions of south Asia, kolam refers to disguise and mimicry. The actors wear masks and costumes and perform with mime, dance and some dialogue. The characters are divided into several types: humans (for example, princes, the drummer and his wife, the European), animals and demons, and the performances move from the depiction of village scenes to stories involving spirits and fabulous creatures from Hindu mythology. The Serpent Demon is a fierce character representing the evil power of snake poisons that can destroy human and animal life. The figure can be recognized partly by the presence of the cobras coiling to form a crown around its head and the snakes that emerge from its nostrils. There are several species of poisonous snakes in Sri Lanka; the cobra in particular is often depicted on demon masks that are used by dancers in rituals to expel evil from the body of a patient.

Recommended

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Kolam dancer's mask - Google Arts & Culture

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Kolam is a dance drama of rural Sri Lanka. Just like several other names for theatre traditions of south Asia, kolam refers to disguise and mimicry. The actors wear masks and costumes and perform with mime, dance and some dialogue.

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Tigre Mask - Unknown - Google Arts & Culture

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Google Arts & Culture features content from over 1200 leading museums and archives who have partnered with the Google Cultural Institute to bring the world's treasures online.

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The eyes are bean-shaped with slit openings and are enclosed in flat raised circles formed by brown and cheek. Mouth is raised, with open flat lips exposing pointed teeth. The ears are small, extended and are drilled inside. An incised bar pattern appears on cheeks and forehead. A single drill hole at top rim of mask. Condition: good. Native repair (sewn crack) top of head and fron of right ear.

Recommended

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Mask (Mwana Pwo) - Unknown - Google Arts & Culture

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The eyes are bean-shaped with slit openings and are enclosed in flat raised circles formed by brown and cheek. Mouth is raised, with open flat lips exposing pointed teeth. The ears are small, extended and are drilled inside. An incised bar pattern appears on cheeks and forehead.

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Watch the video and then choose a mask to write about.

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There are quite a few here, so choose one.

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Original Contemporary Art in the Form of Altered Books & Collage Art

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Choose one, but then you have to follow the link to find out who made it.

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Top 10 of Anything and Everything - The Fun Top Ten Blog

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Kelly Campbell has been sculpting books since 2011 and uses nothing more than whatever is in the pages of the book its self. The words, illustrations and page numbers. So let me take you on a journey of what I think are her 10 very best works of art...

10 - Tin Tin - www.kellycampbellberry.com

Growing up it was Tin-Tin and Asterix I relied on for my comic fix, now I could own my own little piece of Tin-Tin art because all these book sculptures you see here can be brought from the artist's website or ETSY page.

9 - The Jungle Book - www.kellycampbellberry.com

The Jungle book is something that most of us have read. Now as those animals come to life as they not only come out of the original book, they also go into it as well!

8 - The Cat in The Hat - www.kellycampbellberry.com

To be fair to the artist it is really difficult to get the angle of these amazing illustrations just right. Made using a pair of scissors, tweezers, and a nice sharp craft knife I would imagine they take an awful amount of time.

7 - Alice in Wonderland - www.kellycampbellberry.com

A lot of the artist work is believed it or not custom orders. People give her the book to animate. Knowing that I started to wonder what book I would want doing and what pages and images?!?

6 - Superman Comic - www.kellycampbellberry.com

From her biggest sculpture (22″ x 28″ x 3″) of a book called "Medicine" to her smallest sculpture (6″ x 8″) which was "Arabian Nights," there is no book that she can't turn into a work of art. I suppose all books are art in some shape or form.

5 - The Adventures of Robin Hood - www.kellycampbellberry.com

CNow this one I really enjoyed. The way the coloured characters clash with the constant black and white pages look amazing. But it is those word vines coming out of it that are really worthy of being noted.

4 - Aquaman - www.kellycampbellberry.com

There is something slightly nerdy about the artist. From her choice of books and comics to the things that she picks to make stand out. Each work of art showing more and more of her personality.

3 - The Walking Dead - www.kellycampbellberry.com

I just had to include this did I. Being an avid fan of the walking dead I think I am going to have to save up and get this one for myself.

2 - The Count of Monte Cristo - www.kellycampbellberry.com

Take a book that has been turned into several plays, and then turn that book into a stage play itself! Seriously, the detail, layout and design of this are flawless.

1 - Mayberry's Insects - www.kellycampbellberry.com

We will all have our own opinion on which one is the best out of these ten, but for me, it was this one. Take an otherwise boring research book, cut the insects out and suddenly it becomes its own little wildlife scene.

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Top 10 Amazing Book Sculptures by Kelly Campbell

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Kelly Campbell has been sculpting books since 2011 and uses nothing more than whatever is in the pages of the book its self. The words, illustrations and page numbers. So let me take you on a journey of what I think are her 10 very best works of art...

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Fairy Tales

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A series of altered books based upon Fairy Tales.

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Watch the video to see some altered books.

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Papier Mache a Shaped, Opening Box or Container

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Make shaped boxes for miniature displays, candies or keepsakes using simple paper mache techniques and common household materials.

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Video Introduction

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Box #53

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Show this image

Date:

1966

Artist:

Lucas Samaras
American, born Greece, 1936

About this artwork

At the beginning of his career, Lucas Samaras-who is often linked with the junk or assemblage artists of the late 1950s and early 1960s-transformed a large number of found and purchased boxes into glittering, fantastic, and often menacing objects. First conceived in 1962, Box #53 belongs to a group of custom-made, yarn-covered boxes that incorporate stuffed birds. When the box is opened, a tape measure audibly calculates the height of the nine-inch opening. Inside are four compartments, one of which features a crystal encrusted rock. Box #53 embodies a number of implied contrasts: nature's brilliantly hued birds and the man-made, colored yarn; the container's relatively modest interior and its flamboyant exterior; and the muted rock and noisy measuring device. "I'm never interested in ambiguous response," the artist said. "Rather a positive negative ... touch or not touch, the quality of seducing-repelling."

Extended information about this artwork

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Show this image 1966 Lucas SamarasAmerican, born Greece, 1936 At the beginning of his career, Lucas Samaras-who is often linked with the junk or assemblage artists of the late 1950s and early 1960s-transformed a large number of found and purchased boxes into glittering, fantastic, and often menacing objects.

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Box #61

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This mixed media box sculpture was made by the Greek-American artist Lucas Samaras in 1967. Threads of coloured wool are arranged across the box's exterior and numerous brilliants (gemstones), possibly made from plastic, cover its base. The box opens to reveal a complex layout and dazzling array of colours and textures. A photograph of the bottom half of the artist's face lines the inside of the lid, with pins stuck in it at regular intervals along the contours of his cheek, moustache and mouth. Framing the portrait are more brilliants that glitter and give colour, creating a kitsch photo frame. The compartment below this, which incorporates the back hinge of the box, is lined with still more brilliants, producing a dense, inviting interior space. Two pencils, each with a red-painted tip, protrude into this area from either side of the box's inner edges. The front portion of the box reveals a multi-coloured surface of painted dots, and Samaras has painted the interior rim of the box in alternating coloured stripes. The box is displayed open, with a small cylinder painted with dots placed behind it to support the lid.

Samaras created Box #61 in his studio in New York in 1967. He made his first boxes in the summer of 1960 in the form of small wooden containers filled with rags and began numbering some of them in 1962 when he produced Box #1 (private collection). He then went on to make 135 numbered boxes (see Prather 2003, pp.20-2) and this box owned by Tate is the sixty-first produced in that series (for an example of an unnumbered box, see Box 1963, Tate ). Although Samaras made paintings and other sculptures during the 1960s, boxes were his main output at this point in his career.

In a 'self-interview' of 1963 Samaras made a series of statements about the use of pins in his work:

1. When I use them with the flat paintings they create a net pattern which creates a stranger illusion. 2. Pins are marks, lines, and dots. 3. They are relatives of nails. My father spent some time as a shoemaker. I was raised up by a very religious family. The nailing on the cross. As a child I often played with pins at my aunt's [cousin's] dress shop. Nailing pieces of cloth. My father spent many years in the fur business stretching and nailing furs. The pin is to an extent a part of the family.
(Samaras in Levin 1975, pp.45-6.)

In Box #61 the pins seem to threaten the face, holding the mouth shut so that the artist cannot speak. As the critic and art historian Donald Kuspit noted in 2003, Samaras's family were unsupportive of his artistic career. It could be that, despite the ostentatious beauty of this box, Samaras signals his ongoing struggle, again noted by Kuspit, against the views of his family, with his speech being silenced by the pins his father used in his own profession (Kuspit in Prather 2003, p.50).

Further to this, the connection between beauty and pain has been discussed in relation to Samaras's work. The curator and art historian Anne Rorimer explored this in 1973 in an analysis of Box #53 1965 (Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago): 'the essence of his art lies in his ability to produce associations connected with bodily response particularly related to pain or repulsion within a framework of beauty ... Samaras's main artistic concern is to confound beauty with pain, for "I cannot separate beauty from pain", he maintains' (Rorimer 1973, p.3). In the case of Box #61, the decadence of the glittering and colourful surfaces is juxtaposed with the violence of the artist's pin-lined features. The amount of decoration, pattern, texture and colour also threatens to become oppressive through the way in which it overloads the senses, an effect that the critic Kim Levin has described as 'obsessive, intensely private, almost hallucinatory' (Levin 1975, p.46).

Further reading
Anne Rorimer, 'A Box by Lucas Samaras', Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, vol.67, no.3, May-June 1973, pp.1-3.
Kim Levin, Lucas Samaras, New York 1975.
Marla Prather, Unrepentant Ego: The Self-Portraits of Lucas Samaras, exhibition catalogue, Whitney Museum of Art, New York 2003, reproduced p.108.

Louise Hughes
June 2015

Supported by Christie's.
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

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Artwork page for 'Box #61', Lucas Samaras, 1967 Inside this box is a photograph of the artist's face with pins stuck at regular intervals along the contours of his cheek, moustache and mouth. According to Samaras 'the pins are lines, marks and dots, they create a net pattern which gives a strange illusion'.

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Box #10

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[Green Gallery, New York]; Mr. and Mrs. Max Wasserman, Chestnut Hill, Mass. (by 1971-75; sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, Los Angeles, February 3, 1975, no. 49, as "Self Portrait Box"); [Pace Gallery, New York, in 1976]; the artist, New York (by 2003-14; his gift to MMA)

Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. "Lucas Samaras: Boxes," October 30-December 12, 1971, unnumbered cat. (as "Box #10 [Self-Portrait]," lent by Mr. and Mrs. Max Wasserman, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts).

New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Lucas Samaras," November 18, 1972-January 7, 1973, no. 207 (as "Box #10 [Self-Portrait Box]," 1964, lent by Mr. and Mrs. Max Wasserman).

Washington, D.C. Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. "The Golden Door: Artist-Immigrants of America, 1876-1976," May 20-October 20, 1976, no. 181 (as "Box #10, 1963 [Self-Portrait]," lent by the Pace Gallery, New York).

New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "Unrepentant Ego: The Self-Portraits of Lucas Samaras," November 13, 2003-February 8, 2004, unnumbered cat. (p. 82; lent by the artist, courtesy PaceWildenstein, New York).

New York. The Pace Gallery. "Poses 1983-2010. Lucas Samaras," November 9-December 24, 2010, unnumbered cat. (p. 107).

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Lucas Samaras: Offerings from a Restless Soul," February 24-September 7, 2014, no catalogue.

Joan C. Siegfried. Lucas Samaras Boxes. Exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Chicago, 1971, unpaginated, ill.

Kim Levin. Lucas Samaras. New York, 1975, pl. 113.

Lucas Samaras. Exh. cat., Makler Gallery. Philadelphia, 1975, unpaginated, ill.

Cynthia Jaffee McCabe. The Golden Door: Artist-Immigrants of America, 1876-1976. Exh. cat., Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution. Washington, D. C., 1976, pp. 367-68, no. 181, ill. (color).

Pierre Alexandre de Looz and Arne Glimcher. Poses: 1983-2010. Lucas Samaras. Exh. cat., The Pace Gallery. New York, 2010, pp. 107-8, ill.

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Green Gallery, New York]; Mr. and Mrs. Max Wasserman, Chestnut Hill, Mass. (by 1971-75; sale, Sotheby Parke Bernet, Los Angeles, February 3, 1975, no. 49, as "Self Portrait Box"); [Pace Gallery, New York, in 1976]; the artist, New York (by 2003-14; his gift to MMA)

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Box #86

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Eliding historical categorization, Lucas Samaras's oeuvre is united through its consistent focus on the body and psyche, often emphasizing autobiography.

The theme of self-depiction and identity has been a driving force behind his practice, which, at its onset in the early 1960s, advanced the Surrealist idiom yet proposed a radical departure from the presiding themes of Abstract Expressionism and Pop art.

Samaras emigrated with his family from Greece to the United States in 1939, settling in West New York, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, studying under Allan Kaprow and George Segal, and then at Columbia University, New York, where he studied art history under Meyer Schapiro. His interest in self-investigation began during this period, when he initiated painting self-portraits from the front and back using a mirror. He also gravitated toward the use of pastels, which enabled him to work quickly, exploring figurative and geometrical forms in rich colors and with luxuriant texture, characteristics that would reoccur throughout his work. He soon shifted toward objects, producing assemblage reliefs and boxes comprised of elements culled from his immediate surroundings and five-and-dime stores-cutlery, nails, mirrors, brightly colored yarn, and feathers-affixed with liquid aluminum or plaster.

His first New York exhibition was held at Reuben Gallery in 1959, which came on the heels of his first group show at the gallery, Kaprow's 18 Happenings in 6 Parts. Through his involvement at the Reuben Gallery and his participation in Happenings, Samaras met Jim Dine, Red Grooms, and Claes Oldenburg. He had met Robert Whitman, another key figure in the Happenings movement, while at Rutgers and the two collaborated on performances. Samaras debuted his assemblage boxes in 1961 at Green Gallery, New York. For the artist, the boxes possessed elements of sculpture, architecture, and painting, amplified by the inclusion of objects such as mirrors and photographs-additions that situated Samaras as one of the earliest artists to emphasize his ego and corporeal self in his art. His early boxes led to his inclusion in his first institutional group show, The Art of Assemblage, held at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 1961.

In 1965, Samaras joined Pace Gallery, which mounted an exhibition of his works made between 1960 to 1966, that included Samaras' immersive Room No. 2 (1966), also known as Mirrored Room. A culmination of his mirrored boxes, Room No. 2 was his first installation to become a part of a museum collection, acquired in 1966 by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York. Samaras received his first major solo exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1969, which was followed by his first international museum exhibition, held at the Kunstverein Museum in Hanover (1970). By the mid-1970s, he had also received his first large-scale commission for which he produced Silent Struggle (1976), a sculpture comprised of Cor-ten steel, initially installed at the Hale Boggs Federal Courthouse in New Orleans.

In 1969, Samaras began to expand upon his use of photography, experimenting with a Polaroid 360 camera, which appealed to his sense of immediacy. His innovation further materialized with his use of the Polaroid SX-70 in 1973 in a melding of self-portraiture and abstraction, created by manipulating the wet-dye emulsions with a stylus or fingertip before the chemicals set. This processed progressed with digital art in 1996 when he obtained his first computer and began to experiment with printed texts on typewriter paper. By 2002, he had acquired a digital camera and the use of Photoshop became an integral component of his practice. These technologies gave way to Photofictions (2003), a series characterized by distorted self-portraits and psychedelic compositions.

Gesturing toward a larger investigation of (self) reflection in his work, found in his mirror rooms, self-portraiture, and use of digital mirror-imaging, Samaras's oeuvre acts as an extension of his body while underscoring the transformative possibilities of the everyday-a true blurring of art and life.

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The theme of self-depiction and identity has been a driving force behind his practice, which, at its onset in the early 1960s, advanced the Surrealist idiom yet proposed a radical departure from the presiding themes of Abstract Expressionism and Pop art.

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Box

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Made by the Greek-American artist Lucas Samaras in 1963, this work consists of a box that is wrapped in string and studded with pins. Numerous triangular shards of glass protrude from an opening in its lower facade, their points jutting out into the space in front of the object. A handle on the outside of the work suggests that it can be opened, and once the lid is lifted it reveals an interior consisting of two mirrors made from silver acetate film covering the underside of the lid and the box's main compartment, sealing off the inside. Linking the mirrors are several pieces of coloured wool, which run diagonally from the upper left corner of the lid to the bottom right corner of the top compartment and are pulled taught when the box is open.

Samaras created Box in his studio in New York in 1963. The box itself, which is made from mahogany and has a brass handle, has been wrapped in a greyish cream string along which numerous steel pins have been inserted. Samaras cut a large rectangular hole in its front, into which he affixed the thick pieces of mirror glass, and the two sheets of silver acetate are attached to the lid and upper opening using staples. The coloured threads inside the lid consist of four-ply knitting wool.

Samaras made his first boxes in the summer of 1960 in the form of small wooden containers filled with rags. He began numbering some of them in 1962, when he produced Box #1 (private collection). He then went on to make 135 numbered boxes, such as Box #61 1967 (Tate ) (see Prather 2003, pp.20-2). Since it is unnumbered, however, Box belongs more generally to his works in this form and is a relatively early example. Although Samaras made paintings and other sculptures during the 1960s, boxes were his main output at this point in his career. During 1963 Samaras began to use coloured wool in his boxes for the first time, thus the few strands utilised in Box are among his first experiments with this material.

The critic and art historian Donald Kuspit has described Samaras's boxes as 'wombs with much evil and violence in them, and no hope at the bottom, except for Samaras's mirror image' (Donald Kuspit in Prather 2003, p.46). This observation is particularly relevant to Box, which is not only pierced multiple times with pins and glass, but contains mirrors that reflect the artist and the viewer back at him- or herself. Viewers may therefore wish to avoid touching it and yet, despite these qualities, the box's handle and, when closed, its mysterious contents, invites us to open it.

Kuspit has argued that much of Samaras's work is autobiographical, stating that in the same way that the German performance artist and sculptor Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) 'turned his wartime experience into a personal mythology, Samaras has mythologised his traumatic experience' (Kuspit in Prather 2003, p.47). Here Kuspit refers to Samaras's childhood during the Second World War in Greece and the Greek Civil War of 1946-9, arguing that Samaras's boxes represent the way in which he 'hunkered in on himself in a hostile world. He created a small inner space, womblike and reclusive, where he could hold out against the world; a space not unlike the cave in which he hid from the Germans with his mother and aunts' (Kuspit in Prather 2003, pp.46-7).

The pins in Box also have their roots in Samaras's family history. In a 'self-interview' of 1963 he said:

1. When I use them with the flat paintings they create a net pattern which creates a stranger illusion. 2. Pins are marks, lines, and dots. 3. They are relatives of nails. My father spent some time as a shoemaker. I was raised up by a very religious family. The nailing on the cross. As a child I often played with pins at my aunt's [cousin's] dress shop. Nailing pieces of cloth. My father spent many years in the fur business stretching and nailing furs. The pin is to an extent a part of the family.
(Samaras in Levin 1975, pp.45-6.)

Writers such as Kuspit have primarily interpreted Samaras's boxes through a psychoanalytic lens, making connections between their symbolism and events in the artist's life. More generally, they have been situated within surrealism, particularly in their unexpected juxtapositions, such as the colourful and shiny effects combined with the pins, glass and the constraints of the string that suggest a connection between beauty and pain (see Rorimer 1973, p.3).

Further reading
Anne Rorimer, 'A Box by Lucas Samaras', Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago, vol.67, no.3, May-June 1973, pp.1-3.
Kim Levin, Lucas Samaras, New York 1975.
Marla Prather, Unrepentant Ego: The Self-Portraits of Lucas Samaras, exhibition catalogue, Whitney Museum of Art, New York 2003.

Louise Hughes
June 2015

Supported by Christie's.
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.

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Artwork page for 'Box', Lucas Samaras, 1963 Samaras began making boxes using found objects and materials in the early 1960s. His father was a shoemaker and, as a child, Samaras often played in his aunt's dress shop: 'The pin is to an extent a part of the family', he once said, referring to the frequent use of pins in his work.

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Robert Adams. Colorado Springs, Colorado. 1969 | MoMA

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If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

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Born in 1971, Belfast, Ireland
Lives and works in London, UK

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2013
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York

2011
Hannah Starkey: Twenty-Nine Pictures, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast

2010
Maureen Paley, London
Hannah Starkey: Church of Light Altarpiece, St Catherine's Church, Frankfurt

2009
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York

2007
Maureen Paley, London

2006
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York

2005
Lisboa Photo 2005, Lisbon, (C)

2004
Maureen Paley Interim Art, London

2002
Monica de Cardenas, Milan
Maureen Paley Interim Art, London

2000
Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, (C)
Maureen Paley Interim Art, London
Progetto, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, (C)
Cornerhouse, Manchester
Galleria Raucci/Santamaria, Naples

1998
Maureen Paley Interim Art, London

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2015
History Is Now: 7 Artists Take on Britain, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 - 2015, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK

2014
Magnum: One Archive, Three Views | BPB14, Part of Brighton Photo Biennale 2014, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, UK
Stanze/Rooms Works From The Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection, Me Collectors Room Berlin / Olbricht Foundation, Berlin, Germany
The Faraway Nearby, F.E McWilliam Gallery, County Down

2013
Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography, Belfast Exposed and The MAC, Belfast, Ireland

2012
Borrowed Memories: a selection of works from the collection of the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Luan Gallery, Athlone, Ireland
Out Of Focus: Photography, Saatchi Gallery, London

2011
Seoul Photo Festival, Seoul, South Korea
Photography I, Snapshots of a Generation, Wentrup Gallery, Berlin
Nothing in the World but Youth, Turner Contemporary, Margate

2009
With You I Want to Live: Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Collection, Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale
QUAD & FORMAT International Photography Festival, Derby, UK.

2008
Seeing the Light, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York.
M25: Around London, Centre Cultural Andratx, Mallorca, curated by Barry Schwabsky.

2007
Something That I'll Never Really See, Contemporary Photography from the V&A, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Art, Norwich.
Visual Dialogues, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester.
Between Today and Yesterday, Turnpike Gallery, Wigan.

2006
Jugend von Heute / Youth of Today, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Frankfurt.
The Portrait: Full Face and Profile, Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston.

2005
Motor Blues - The donation autowerke given by BMW financial services to the museum der bildenden Kunste Leipzig, Museum der bildenden Kunste Leipzig, (C).
Berlin Photography Festival, Berlin, (C).

2004
Take Five ! Huis Marseille turns five, Huis Marseille, Amsterdam.

2003
Sodium Dreams, Center for Curatorial Studies Museum, Bard College, New York.
A bigger s[lash - British art from Tate - 1960 - 2003, Pavihao lucas Nogueira Garcez - Oca Parque ibirapuera, Sao Paul & Instituto Tomie Ohtake, (C).

2002
The St, JamesGroup Ltd Photography Prize 2002, Flowers East, London.
Coming of Age, The New Art Gallery, Walsall.
Landscape, Saatchi Gallery @ 30 Underwood Street, London.
Painted, Printed and Produced in Great Britain, Grant Selwyn Fine Art, New York.

2001
Melancholy, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland.
UBS Warburg, London, UK, (C).
Telling Tales: Narrative Impulses in Recent Art, Tate Liverpool.
No World Without You, Reflections of Identity in New British Art,
Herzliya Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, (C).
Extended Painting, Monica de Cardenas, Milan.
Instant City, Museo Pecci, Prato, Italy, (C).
Citibank Private Bank Photography Prize, The Photographers' Gallery, London, (C)

2000
Suspendidos, Centro de Fotografía, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.
Imago, Universidad de Salamanca, Spain.
Give and Take: The Contemporary Art Society at the Jerwood, Jerwood Space, London.

1999
Dreamlands, Portfolio gallery, Edinburgh, (C).
Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels.
Clues, Monte Video, Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam.
3rd International Tokyo Photo Bienalle, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Japan, (C).
Nederlands Foto Instituut, Rotterdam (joint exhibition with Francis Kearny)

1998
The new neurotic realism, The Saatchi Gallery, London, (C).
Silver & Syrup: A Selection from the History of Photography, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Remix: Images Photographiques, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes, (C).
Look at me, Kunsthal Rotterdam, The British Council Touring Exhibition, (C).
Real Life, Galleria SALES, Rome.
Sightings, New Photographic Art, I.C.A., London, (C).
Shine, Photo '98, National Museum of Film and Photography, Bradford.
Modern Narratives: The domestic and the social, Artsway, London.

1997
John Kobal Foundation, National Portrait Gallery, London.

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Born in 1971, Belfast, Ireland Lives and works in London, UK 2013 Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York 2011 Hannah Starkey: Twenty-Nine Pictures, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast 2010 Maureen Paley, London Hannah Starkey: Church of Light Altarpiece, St Catherine's Church, Frankfurt 2009 Tanya Bonakdar Gallery,

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Maureen Paley is a contemporary art gallery with an international programme.

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Nighthawks

Date:

1942

Artist:

Edward Hopper
American, 1882-1967

Related

Related

About this artwork

About Nighthawks Edward Hopper recollected, "unconsciously, probably, I was painting the loneliness of a large city." In an all-night diner, three customers sit at the counter opposite a server, each appear to be lost in thought and disengaged from one another. The composition is tightly organized and spare in details: there is no entrance to the establishment, no debris on the streets. Through harmonious geometric forms and the glow of the diner's electric lighting, Hopper created a serene, beautiful, yet enigmatic scene. Although inspired by a restaurant Hopper had seen on Greenwich Avenue in New York, the painting is not a realistic transcription of an actual place. As viewers, we are left to wonder about the figures, their relationships, and this imagined world.

Status

On View, Gallery 262

Department

Arts of the Americas

Artist

Edward Hopper

Title

Nighthawks

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

1942

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

signed l.r. "Edward Hopper"

Dimensions

84.1 × 152.4 cm (33 1/8 × 60 in.)

Credit Line

Friends of American Art Collection

Reference Number

1942.51

Extended information about this artwork

Gail Levin, "Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, Surrealism, and the War," Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 22, 2 (1996), 180-95, fig. 1.

The Art Institute of Chicago: Twentieth-Century Painting and Sculpture, selected by James N. Wood and Teri J. Edelstein (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1996), 85, ill.

Judith A. Barter et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955 (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), no. 133.

Nina Baym et al., eds., The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 8th edition (W. W. Norton & Company, 2012), ill.

Arthur Shimamura, Experiencing Art: In the Brain of the Beholder (Oxford University Press, 2013), 237 (ill.).

Derek Matravers, Introducing Philosophy of Art: In Eight Case Studies (Routledge, 2013), ill.

Duane Preble Emeritus et al., Prebles' Artforms, 11th edition (Pearson, 2013), 428, ill.

Robert Burleigh, Edward Hopper Paints His World (Henry Holt and Co., 2014), ill.

Steven Mintz, The Prime of Life: A History of Modern Adulthood (Belknap Press, 2015), ill.

Ramsay H. Slugg, Handbook of Practical Planning for Art Collectors and Their Advisors (ABA Book Publishing, 2015), ill.

Judith A. Barter, ed. America After the Fall: Painting in the 1930s, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2016), fig. 3, 178.

Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago, Highlights of the Collection (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2017), 135.

Judith A. Barter, "Prolog: Eine neue Welt der Kunst" and Susanne Scharf, "Bilder von Amerika: Edward Hoppers Äesthetisierung des Alltäglichen," in Es war einmal in Amerika - 300 Jahre US-amerikanische Kunst [Once Upon a Time in America: Three Centuries of American Art], eds. Barbara Schaefer and Anita Hachmann (Cologne: Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud/Wienand Verlag, 2018), 25, fig. 12 (ill.); 219, fig. 1 (ill.).

Charles Passy, "Edward Hopper's 'Nighthawks' Gets 21st Century Makeover," The Wall Street Journal, Dec. 5, 2020, https://www.wsj.com/articles/edward-hoppers-nighthawks-gets-21st-century-makeover-11607184000.

"The Defining Artworks of 2020," ARTnews, Dec. 9, 2020, https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/artists/most-important-artworks-2020-1234578712/edward-hopper-nighthawks-1942, ill.

Hall W. Rockefeller, "A Rehang of Hopper's Iconic 'Nighthawks' Changes the Game," Hyperallergic, Mar. 23, 2022, https://hyperallergic.com/718667/a-rehang-of-edward-hopper-iconic-nighthawks-changes-the-game (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, The Fifty-third Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, Oct. 29-Dec. 10, 1942, cat. 132.

Indianapolis, 1943.

Art Institute of Chicago, The Fifty-fourth Annual Exhibition of American Paintings and Sculpture, Oct. 28-Dec. 12, 1943, cat. 15.

New York City, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edward Hopper: Retrospective Exhibition, Feb. 11-Mar. 26, 1950, cat. 61, pl. 28; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Apr. 13-May 14, 1950; Detroit Institute of Arts, June 4-July 2, 1950.

New York City, Wildenstein, Loan Exhibition of Seventy Twentieth Century American Paintings, Feb. 21-Mar. 22, 1952, cat. 54.

Venice, Esposiazione Biennale Internazionale d'Arte, June 14-Oct. 19, 1952, cat. 26.

Art Institute of Chicago, Two Centuries of American Art, 1750-1950, Oct. 1, 1959-Jan. 10, 1960, no cat. [downloadable checklist available].

Lake Forest College, Illinois.

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edward Hopper, Sept. 29-Nov. 29, 1964, cat. 43; Art Institute of Chicago, Dec. 18-Jan. 31, 1965.

Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, Fifty Years of Modern Art, June 14-July 31, 1966, cat. 81.

New York City, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edward Hopper: The Art and the Artist, Sept. 23, 1980-Jan. 18, 1981, cat. 386; London, Hayward Gallery, Feb. 11-Mar. 29, 1981 (separate catalogue, cat. 96), Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Apr. 22-June 17, 1981; Düsseldorf, Städtische Kunsthalle, July 10-Sept. 6, 1981; Art Institute of Chicago, Oct. 3-Nov. 29, 1981; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Dec16, 1981-Feb. 14, 1982.

Essen, Germany, Museum Folkwang, Edward Hopper und die Fotografie: die Warheit des Sichtbaren (Edward Hopper and Photography: The Truth of the Real), June 28-Sept. 27, 1992, p. 63, ill.

London, Tate Modern, Edward Hopper, May 27-Sept. 5, 2004; Cologne, Museum Ludwig, Oct. 9, 2004-Jan. 9, 2005.

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Oct. 3-Dec. 31, 2006.

Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Edward Hopper, May 6-Aug. 19, 2007; Washington, DC, National Gallery of Art, Sept. 16, 2007-Jan. 21, 2008; Art Institute of Chicago, Feb. 16-May 11, 2008.

Madrid, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Edward Hopper, June 12-Sept. 16, 2012; Paris, Galeries nationales d'exposition du Grand Palais, Oct. 5, 2012-Jan. 28, 2013 (Paris only).

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Edward Hopper Drawings, May 23-Oct. 6, 2013; Dallas Museum of Art, Nov. 17, 2013-Feb. 16, 2014; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center, Mar. 15-June 22, 2014 (New York only).

Art Institute of Chicago, Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine, Nov. 10, 2013-Jan. 27, 2014, cat. 28; Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Feb. 22-May 18, 2014.

Shanghai Museum, Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865-1945, Sept. 28, 2018-Jan. 6, 2019, cat. 71.

Edward Hopper (1882-1967), 1942; consigned to Frank Rehn Galleries, 1942; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1942.

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Nighthawks | The Art Institute of Chicago

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is the most renowned and reproduced of all of Edvard Munch's pictures. With its expressive colours, flowing lines, and striking overall effect, The Scream has proven to have universal appeal.

The painting features a radically simplified landscape that is recognizable as the Kristianiafjord as seen from Ekeberg Hill, which overlooks the fjord, the city of Kristiania, and the hills to the north. In the background to the left, at the end of the road with a parapet that cuts diagonally inward into the picture, we see two figures strolling; the pair is often regarded as the two friends mentioned by Munch in notes relating to the painting. But it is the figure in the foreground that immediately captures our attention. Its head is in its hands and its mouth is shaped as a silent scream, amplified by the quavering movement of the surrounding landscape. The figure is ambigous and open to interpretation, and it is hard to pin down whether it is a man or a woman, young or old - or even whether it is a living person at all.

In his journal entries, Munch referred on several occasions to what underlay this depiction of existential angst. One version goes as follows: "I was walking along the road with two friends - Then the sun went down - The sky suddenly became blood, and I felt the great scream of nature -". The Scream was first shown at Munch's solo exhibition in Berlin in 1893. It was a central work in the series of paintings known as the Frieze of Life, and has been subject to a host of in-depth studies and interpretations. The painting also exists in a later version, currently dated to 1910, that belongs to the Munch Museum. Munch also elaborated the motif in drawings, pastels, and prints.
Text: Marianne Yvenes
From "Highlights. Art from Antiquity to 1945", Nasjonalmuseet 2014, ISBN 978-82-8154-088-0

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Edvard Munch, The Scream - Nasjonalmuseet - Collection

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
is the most renowned and reproduced of all of Edvard Munch's pictures. With its expressive colours, flowing lines, and striking overall effect, The Scream has proven to have universal appeal. The painting features a radically simplified landscape that is recognizable as the Kristianiafjord as seen from Ekeberg Hill, which overlooks the fjord, the city of Kristiania, and the hills to the north.

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Andrew Wyeth. Christina’s World. 1948 | MoMA

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Andrew Wyeth. Christina’s World. 1948. Tempera on panel. 32 1/4 x 47 3/4″ (81.9 x 121.3 cm). Purchase. 16.1949. Painting and Sculpture

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Overview

Judith Leyster's Self-Portrait exudes self-confidence in her abilities, and it has become one of the National Gallery of Art's most popular Dutch paintings. Leyster has depicted herself at her easel, briefly interrupting work on a painting of a violin player to interact with the viewer. The momentary quality of the portrait and the vigorous brushwork echo the work of Frans Hals (c. 1582/1583-1666), Haarlem's most celebrated portrait painter and Leyster's colleague. By juxtaposing her hand holding a brush with the hand and bow of the violin player, Leyster cleverly compares the art of creating ephemeral music with the art of creating timeless paintings. She holds the tools of her trade-a palette, a cloth, and no fewer than eighteen brushes. In reality she would not have worn the elegant dress and lace-trimmed collar while at work in her studio.

Leyster entered into the Saint Luke's Guild of Haarlem as an independent master in 1633. As a master in her own right, a rarity for a female artist at the time, Leyster established her own workshop and had paying students. Five years earlier, her proficiency and talent had already drawn public praise. A chronicler of Haarlem described Leyster, then only nineteen years old, as a painter of "good and keen insight." In the late 1640s, another city historian wrote that among the many women experienced in the field of painting, "one excels exceptionally, Judith Leyster, called 'the true leading star' in art." The compliment cleverly alludes to the artist's family name, which means "lodestar." The artist herself incorporated a star in her professional signature, the monogram JL*. Following her marriage to fellow Haarlem artist Jan Miense Molenaer in 1636, Leyster stopped producing art in her own name but probably continued to paint in collaboration with, and in the workshop of, her husband.

Entry

As she turns from her painting of a violin player and gazes smilingly out at the viewer, Judith Leyster manages to assert, in the most offhanded way, that she has mastered a profession traditionally viewed as a masculine domain. Although women drew and painted as amateurs, a professional woman painter was a rarity in Holland in the seventeenth century. Leyster was quite a celebrity even before she painted this self-portrait in about 1630. Her proficiency, even at the tender age of nineteen, had been so remarkable that in 1628 Samuel Ampzing singled her out for praise in his Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem in Holland some five years before she appears to have become the first woman ever to be admitted as a master in the Haarlem Saint Luke's Guild. Even after 1636, when she moved to Amsterdam with her husband, the artist Jan Miense Molenaer (c. 1610-1668), her artistic reputation never waned in her native city. In the late 1640s another historian of Haarlem, Theodorus Schrevelius, wrote, "There also have been many experienced women in the field of painting who are still renowned in our time, and who could compete with men. Among them, one excels exceptionally, Judith Leyster, called 'the true leading star' in art."

The young artist sits in a remarkably casual manner, with her right arm resting on the back of her chair. As she looks out at the viewer with one hand holding a brush and the other her palette, a large bundle of brushes, and a white painter's cloth, it appears as though she has just been interrupted from her work. Indeed, Leyster has purposely left the figure of the violin player on the canvas in an unfinished state. Nevertheless, she is dressed in quite formal attire, inappropriate for an artist busy working. One could hardly imagine her painting while wearing such a firmly starched, broad, lace-trimmed collar.

The inconsistencies can be explained in the dichotomy that existed between the traditional iconography for artists' self-portraits and the relatively new informal concept of portraiture that had developed in Haarlem in the 1620s through the influence of Frans Hals (Dutch, c. 1582/1583 - 1666). It had long been accepted for an artist to depict him- or herself dressed in fine clothes before an easel, as did, for example, one of the few successful women artists of the sixteenth century, Catharina van Hemessen (1528-after 1587), in her self-portrait of 1548 (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Basel). This tradition developed as artists sought to raise their social status from craftsmen to members of the liberal arts. The parallel that could be drawn between the noble character of painting and the social position of the artist is also evident in Cesare Ripa's insistence that the personification of "Artificio of Konststuck" should be dressed in expensive and artfully made ( konstigh) clothes. "He should be dressed ingeniously and nobly because art by itself is noble, which men can also call the second Nature." Leyster abided by this tradition, yet she was also aware of the innovations of the greatest Haarlem portrait painter of the day, Frans Hals. While her brushwork is not as vivacious as that of Hals, the momentary quality of the image, conveyed through informality of pose and open expression, is related to his portrait style of the 1620s.

The exact date of this self-portrait is not known. Hofrichter has argued that Leyster executed it as a presentation piece at the time of her entry into the Haarlem Saint Luke's Guild in 1633. The new regulations, which were established in 1631, required that each new master present to the guild "a painting two feet large" as testimony of skill. Nevertheless, for a number of reasons this attractive hypothesis is probably not correct. First, the costume cannot date that late. This flat, lace-edged style of collar can be found in portraits from the late 1620s but not in the 1630s. The style of the cap, moreover, is extremely close to one in Leyster's Carousing Couple (1630, Musée du Louvre, Paris). The smooth modeling of the heads of the women in these two paintings is also extremely close. Their features are somewhat superficially rendered in comparison to the more three-dimensionally conceived genre figures that Leyster painted in the early to mid-1630s. Finally, the painting of a violin player displayed on the easel in the Self-Portrait derives from Merry Company, which she executed between about 1629 and 1631 . It seems unlikely that she would have returned to this subject in 1633 to demonstrate her abilities for admission to the guild. All of this evidence suggests a date of about 1630 for this work, when Leyster was about twenty-one years old.

Leyster did not initially plan to paint the violin player on the canvas, but rather a portrait of a woman, whose face is visible in an infrared photograph and with Infrared Reflectography . Following the iconographic tradition of portraits depicting an artist at an easel, this woman was probably Leyster herself. She may have decided to depart from that tradition because of the popular success of the Merry Company scene from which the violin player derived, or to emphasize her versatility as a painter of both portraits and genre scenes. In any event, the happy disposition of the violin player gives the Self-Portrait a joyous character that adds much to its charm. By juxtaposing the bow of the violin player and her own paintbrush, Leyster seems to remind the viewer that, just as the musician has mastered his instrument to produce music, so too has she mastered the tools of her profession to create equally compelling art.

This painting, which is not signed, was long attributed to Frans Hals, in large part because Leyster's own artistic personality was only rediscovered in 1893. The first art historian to identify the painting as a self-portrait by Leyster was Abraham Bredius, who, as editor of Oud-Holland, appended his opinion to an article in that journal positing that Hals has here portrayed Leyster. Unfortunately, the painting has suffered from overall abraision and minute pitting of the paint surface (see Technical Summary). X-radiographs [see X-radiography ] have also revealed that a long, horizontal rectangle of the original canvas is missing in the lower left and has been replaced by an insert . The reddish dress in this area, thus, is a reconstruction and not from the hand of Judith Leyster. Nevertheless, after the painting's 1992 restoration, which removed discolored layers of varnish that had severely disfigured the painting, this engaging image of a self-assured young female painter from Haarlem has taken on an iconic status in Dutch art.

Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.

April 24, 2014

Provenance

Possibly the painting identified as a painting by Frans Hals depicting his daughter at the easel that appeared in four London sales between 1810 and 1812.[1] E.M. Grainger, Hastings, Sussex; Mrs. Granger, Bexhil-on-Sea, East Sussex;[2] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 16 April 1926, no. 115); purchased by E. Smith, probably for a London dealer.[3] private collection, New York, in 1928.[4] (Ehrich Galleries, New York); purchased 9 May 1929 by Mr. and Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss, Washington, D.C.;[5] gift 1949 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1933

A Century of Progress Exhibition of Paintings and Sculpture, Art Institute of Chicago, 1933, no. 64, as by Frans Hals.

1937

Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century, John Herron Art Museum, Indianapolis, 1937, no. 22, as by Frans Hals.

1937

Frans Hals Tentoonstelling ter gelegenheid van het 75-jarig bestaan van het gemeentelijk Museum te Haarlem, Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem, 1937, no. 9, repro., as by Frans Hals.

1937

Paintings by Frans Hals: Exhibition for the Benefit of New York University, Schaeffer Galleries, Inc., New York, 1937, no. 3, as by Frans Hals.

1988

People at Work: Seventeenth-Century Dutch Art, Hofstra Museum, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, 1988, no. 11.

1993

Judith Leyster: A Dutch Master and Her World, Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem; Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, 1993, no. 7, repro.

1993

Judith Leyster: "Leading Star," National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., 1993-1994, brochure, color repro.

1999

Elck zijn waerom: Vrouwelijke kunstenaars in België en Nederland, 1500-1950 [As You Will: Women Artists in the Netherlands and Belgium, 1500-1950], Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Antwerp; Museum voor Moderne Kunst, Arnhem, 1999-2000, no. 34.

2001

Face to Face: Portraits from Five Centuries, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 2001-2002, no. 35, repro.

2002

Jan Miense Molenaer: Painter of the Dutch Golden Age, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Indianapolis Museum of Art (Columbus Gallery); Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, New Hampshire, 2002-2003, fig. 8 (shown only in Raleigh).

2003

Loan to display with permanent collection, National Gallery, London, 2003-2004.

2005

Self Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary, National Portrait Gallery, London; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2005-2006, no. 11, repro.

2009

Judith Leyster, 1609-1660 [Judith Leyster's 400th Anniversary], National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, 2009-2010, unnumbered brochure, cover repro.

2015

Dutch Self-Portraits -- Selfies of the Golden Age, Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague, 2015-2016, no. 3, repro.

Technical Summary

The support, a plain-woven fabric with numerous slubs and weave imperfections, has been lined with the tacking margins trimmed. A large horizontal rectangle of original canvas is missing from the bottom left in an area corresponding to the red skirt, and has been replaced with a fine-weight, tightly woven fabric insert. The X-radiographs show cusping along all edges except the insert, which is also bereft of original paint or ground layers.

A smooth, thin, white ground layer was applied overall and followed by a gray brown imprimatura layer. Paint handling varies from fluid paint applied in loose liquid strokes in the black peplum to thicker pastes blended wet-into-wet in the flesh tones. White cuffs were applied wet-over-dry above the thinly scumbled purple sleeves, and red glazes were laid over opaque pink underpaint in the original passages of the red skirt.

An infrared photograph and infrared reflectography at 1.1 to 1.4 microns[1] reveal a major change in the easel painting, which originally showed a woman's head, with parted lips, turned slightly to the left, which is now partially visible as a pentimento. With the exception of the loss in the lower left, actual paint losses are few: small losses in the top at center and in the proper left cheek. The paint surface, however, is in relatively poor condition, with minute pitting throughout of the type caused by superheating during a lining procedure. This is exacerbated by moderate abrasion overall, and flattening. The unfinished violin player on the easel is heavily abraded.

The painting was treated in 1992 to remove discolored varnish layers and old inpainting. The later insert was retained.

[1] Infrared reflectography was performed with a Santa Barbara Focalplane InSb camera fitted with a J astronomy filter.

Bibliography

1989

Hofrichter, Frima Fox. Judith Leyster: A woman painter in Holland's Golden Age. Aetas aurea 9. Doornspijk, 1989: 15, 24, 51-53, no. 21, pls. 21, 55, 56, 57, color plate x.

1993

Welu, James A., and Pieter Biesboer. Judith Leyster: Schilderes in een Mannenwereld. Exh. cat. Frans Halsmuseum, Haarlem. Zwolle, 1993: 21, 47, 71, 83, 85, 95-96, 103-105, 119, 162-167, 305, no. 7, repro.

Related Terms

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Overview Judith Leyster's Self-Portrait exudes self-confidence in her abilities, and it has become one of the National Gallery of Art's most popular Dutch paintings. Leyster has depicted herself at her easel, briefly interrupting work on a painting of a violin player to interact with the viewer.

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This series of photographs was shot at the 'Grand Ghetto' of Foggia, where thousands of African immigrants work in the fields picking tomatoes in semi-slavery conditions.
While there I started being confronted by the workers about my right to shoot those photographs. Many others have been here before me, they said, shooting and distributing pictures that were largely unrelated to the image that the people portrayed have of themselves.
I am not what I look like, was the key concept of this long speeches I had while I was trying to understand why people were so reluctant to be photographed.
Nevertheless, I was fascinated by the vast spectrum of humanity I had been able to come across during my stay. People that saved money for years in order to afford the journey to Italy, a place where they could find a well-paid job and have a brighter future in the 'promised land' Europe. People that now live in cardboard shelters with no water or electricity, working ten hours per day for less than four euros per hour. People that had to lose their identity and become tomato pickers.

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On the Identity of a Tomato Picker - Dario Bosio - Photographer

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This series of photographs was shot at the 'Grand Ghetto' of Foggia, where thousands of African immigrants work in the fields picking tomatoes in semi-slavery conditions.While there I started being confronted by the workers about my right to shoot those photographs.

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Dorothea Lange began as a professional portrait photographer in the early 1920s. The social calamity of the Depression prodded her to leave the studio to document the nation's dispossessed. In her work for the Farm Security Administration in 1936, she recorded this migrant pea-picker, 32-year-old Florence Thompson, with three of her children. Lange had the uncanny ability to see people as both individuals and as representative types: to recognize the iconic in the ordinary. Lange's migrant mother becomes a symbol of both strife and fortitude in the face of adversity, suggesting the condition of millions of her fellow Americans.

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One of Nike's most famous posters, Wings features Chicago Bulls basketball legend Michael Jordan along with a quote from poet William Blake, "No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings." With Jordan as their marquee player, the Bulls dominated the NBA in the 1990s.

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Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. "Self-Portrait of an Artist Seated at an Easel." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (accessed October 29, 2019).

This page is available on the site's Archive. PDF of every version of this page is available on the Archive, and the Archive is managed by a permanent URL. Archival copies will never be deleted. New versions are added only when a substantive change to the narrative occurs.

Seated before a panel painting resting on his easel, a young painter turns toward the viewer with his arm casually propped on the back of his chair. With slightly parted mouth and searching, wide-eyed gaze, the artist is portrayed with an air of immediacy and informality. Except for a small table in the left background, the studio is bare and unadorned, its simplicity evident even in the worn, mottled wood of the artist's chair. A strong light entering from the left creates sharp highlights on the man's mustard-colored blouse and violet beret, and illuminates the thin ties of his cyan blue painter's robe where it hangs over the back of the chair. Although the artist grasps a palette and brushes in his left hand, the viewer has not interrupted his work, as he does not hold a brush in his right hand and the palette is bare except for the small, smudged remnants of white and red pigments.

The attribution of this handsome portrait is a conundrum. The painting was once associated with Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635-81), probably because of the panel's arched format and the smooth and careful rendering of the sitter's features and clothes. However, most Leiden artists, including Van Mieris and Gerrit Dou (1613-75), added allegorical accoutrements in their self-portraits-lacking here-that served to enhance the artist's intellectual prestige and social status. For example, Dou's Self-Portrait from the mid-1630s portrays the artist resting his arm on a plaster cast and situates him in an elegant, curtain-draped interior. This artist's simple dress and the unadorned view of his studio seem entirely different from that pictorial tradition. Closer in character to its half-length composition and informal pose is Judith Leyster's (1609-60) Self-Portrait of the early 1630s . Nevertheless, the clarity of the image and the light tonalities of the palette are characteristic of works produced later in the century. The shape of the artist's beret and the short cut of his hair are typical of styles from the early 1650s.

Self-portraiture was not confined to artists from Haarlem and Leiden, as can be amply attested by the example of Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-69) during his long career in Amsterdam. As with Rembrandt's example, attributions of artist self-portraits are often based on the sitter's appearance, and taking that approach, in this instance, may yield results. Given the young artist's probable age of around 20-25 years old, one can postulate that he must have been born around 1630. Cornelis Bisschop (1630-74) would appear to be a prime candidate. Bisschop was a Dordrecht artist who, according to Arnold Houbraken, studied with Ferdinand Bol (1616-80). He spent his entire career in Dordrecht, where he executed portraits, genre subjects and history scenes, but his reputation rested primarily on his illusionistic paintings, often candlelit scenes. His fascination with trompe l'oeil illusionism is evident in a self-portrait from 1668 in Dordrecht, depicting him lifting a curtain from a painting, a direct visual association to the ancient painter Parrhasius . Parrhasius was renowned for fooling his contemporary Zeuxis by painting a curtain so real that Zeuxis attempted to lift it to view the painting he believed the curtain covered.

A self-portrait by Bisschop in Detroit executed in the mid-1660s, slightly earlier than the Dordrecht self-portrait, exhibits facial characteristics remarkably similar to those in Self-Portrait of an Artist Seated at an Easel . In both the Detroit and Leiden Collection paintings, the sitter looks at the viewer with an open expression with his eyebrows arched and his mouth slightly opened. His curly, dark brown hair falls gently to the side of his roundish face. The sitter's nose is also similarly shaped in each portrait. Aside from such similarities in the sitter's physical appearance, the Leiden Collection painting is executed in a manner that resembles the style of Bisschop's paintings of the 1660s. For example, the smooth handling of paint and the harmonious balance between ochers and grays in the self-portrait anticipate qualities seen in Bisschop's Girl Peeling an Apple, 1667, in the Rijksmuseum . Unfortunately, not enough is known about Bisschop's paintings from the 1650s; hence these connections, while intriguing and evocative, are not sufficient to attribute the Leiden Collection painting firmly to this Dordrecht artist.

- Lara Yeager-Crasselt
2017

1. When this painting was sold at Sotheby's in London on 4 December 2008, no. 144, it was identified as: "Dutch School," ca. 1640-50.

2. Records at the Frick Art Reference Library, which note that the painting was once in the collection of Thomas Giffard, Chillington Hall, describe it as "Netherlandish school: Portrait of an Artist," and alternatively, "attributed, with question, to Frans van Mieris the Elder; possibly a youthful self-portrait." In 2009 Jack Kilgore suggested an attribution to Jacob van Velsen (ca. 1597-1656), a Delft artist who depicted an artist in his studio on several occasions (correspondence in the Leiden Collection). However, the Leiden Collection painting seems to bear little resemblance to Van Velsen's work, nor does it appear to embody the artistic traditions of Delft. For Van Velsen, see Walter Liedtke, ed., Vermeer and the Delft School (Exh. cat. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (New Haven, 2001), 349-51. The 2008 Sotheby's catalogue states that this painting resembles works by the Rotterdam artists Hendrick Maertensz Sorgh, Cornelis Saftleven, and Jan Olis, as well as a self-portrait by the Flemish artist David Teniers the Younger. See, for example, Cornelis Saftleven, Self-Portrait before an Easel, 1629, 31 x 23 cm., Paris, Musée du Louvre; and David Teniers the Younger, Self-Portrait, Vienna, Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der Künste. For a discussion of artist self-portraits produced during this period, see Hans-Joachim Raupp, Untersuchungen zu Künstlerbildnis und Künstlerdarstellung in den Niederlanden im 17. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim, 1984), 234-36, nos. 141, 143, 144.

3. For this work and Dou's place in Leiden, see Ronni Baer, Gerrit Dou, 1613-1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (New Haven, 2000), no. 7.

4. I would like to thank Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. for his guidance in discussing this work, and for suggesting its possible attribution to Cornelis Bisschop. Guido Jansen kindly brought my attention to the auction catalogue of the Leiden burgomaster, Johan van der Marck Aegidiusz, an auction that occurred in Amsterdam on 25 August 1773. This sale contained 98 self-portraits of Leiden artists, but I was not able to locate the Leiden Collection painting.

5. See Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlandse konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718-21; revised edition published in, The Hague, 1753; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1980), 2:220.

6. Bisschop's paintings were acquired by King Louis XIV of France, and he was invited to become court painter for the Danish king, but he was never able to fulfill that role because of illness that led to his early death. See Arnold Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlandse konstschilders en schilderessen, 3 vols. (Amsterdam, 1718-21; revised edition published in The Hague, 1753; reprinted in Amsterdam, 1980), 2:221-22.

7. For an account of the story of Parrhasius and Zeuxis as it relates to Gerrit Dou, see Ronni Baer, Gerrit Dou, 1613-1675: Master Painter in the Age of Rembrandt, ed. Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. (Exh. cat. Washington D.C., National Gallery of Art; London, Dulwich Picture Gallery; The Hague, Mauritshuis) (New Haven, 2000), 20.

8. The attribution of the Detroit work has been alternatively given to Frans van Mieris the Elder (1635-81), Jan van Mieris (1660-90), and Michiel van Musscher (1645-1705).

9. It is interesting that the Detroit painting was also formerly attributed to Frans van Mieris the Elder, and that the sitter is likewise portrayed within an arched format.

art

artist (in general)

artist (in general) (+ the work of art and its production)

artist at work, in his workshop

brushes ~ implements of painter

easel

historical events and situations; historical persons

historical person: Cornelis Bisschop

historical person: Gerrit Dou

historical persons

historical persons (portraits and scenes from the life)

History

painting (including book-illumination, miniature-painting)

painting, drawing and the graphic arts

palette

portrait, self-portrait of artist

Society, Civilization, Culture

the arts; artists

tools, implements of painter

workshop, studio of the artist (in general)

Thomas Giffard (d. 1823), Wolverhampton, Staffordshire.

Sir Ernest Trollope Bt., by descent to Louisa Charlotte Trollope (1858-1966), thence by descent (sale, Sotheby's, London, 4 December 2008, no. 144 [Johnny van Haeften, Ltd., London]).

From whom acquired by the present owner in 2008.

The support, a vertically oriented, rectangular composite panel with an arched upper edge, is comprised of two, unequally sized, horizontally grained oak planks. The horizontal join crosses below the figure's proper right elbow and the upper edge of artist's palette. The upper plank is of eastern Baltic origin and derives from a tree felled after 1604. The lower plank is a tangential section and contains too few rings to date.

The arched upper edge and lower horizontal edge are irregularly cut, which suggests they have been modified. The panel is uncradled and has no bevels, but does have horizontal hand tool marks and vertical machine tool marks along the reverse. There is one paper label, but no wax collection seal, import stamps, stencils or panel maker's marks.

A light-colored ground has been thinly and evenly applied, followed by paint applied smoothly along the light gray background, easel, and palette and with low brushmarkings along the figure's drapery and hat. A narrow gap between the background and the figure's head exposes the light, warm underlayer.

No underdrawing is evident with infrared images captured at 780-1000 nanometers, but the images and X-radiograph do reveal compositional changes. The figure originally held an object with a repeating L-shaped pattern in his proper right hand. The palette was added after the proper left hand and sleeve were executed and the artist may have originally held brushes in his hand. The figure's face appears to have originally been that of a somewhat older person with a longer narrower face and sharper features than in the final painted composition, which depicts a young man with a round face and an open-mouthed, slightly startled expression.

The painting is unsigned and undated.

The painting was consolidated, cleaned, and restored in 2009, and remains in a good state of preservation.

Technical Summary Endnotes

1. The characterization of the wood is based on Ian Tyers's dendrochronology report.

2. According to Ian Tyers's dendrochronology report.

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Self-Portrait of an Artist Seated at an Easel - The Leiden Collection

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Yeager-Crasselt, Lara. "Self-Portrait of an Artist Seated at an Easel." In The Leiden Collection Catalogue. Edited by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr. https://www.theleidencollection.com/archive/ (accessed October 29, 2019). This page is available on the site's Archive. PDF of every version of this page is available on the Archive, and the Archive is managed by a permanent URL.

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Inside Outside:  Social and Personal Identity

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Inside Outside:  Social and Personal Identity

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Here are some of the resoures we are using for out unit.  Click on the one you need to explore.

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Self-Portrait

Date:

c. 1920

Artist:

Archibald John Motley Jr.
American, 1891-1981

About this artwork

Chicagoan Archibald Motley attended the School of the Art Institute at a time when many prominent art academies denied entrance to African American students. His affiliation with the school was thus of great significance to him. Around 1920, as a recent graduate, he painted a self-portrait meant to introduce him as a poised young artist, elegantly presenting himself in a dark suit jacket, crisp white shirt, and a dark tie accented by a diamond horseshoe pin. Furthermore, Motley painted this work following race riots in July 1919, which had heightened tensions in Chicago. The violence convinced him that he should use his art to influence perceptions of African Americans in a positive manner. This sophisticated self-portrait is thus an extraordinary declaration of his goals and ambitions.

Currently Off View

American Art

Artist

Archibald John Motley Jr.

Title

Self-Portrait

Origin

United States

Date

1920

Medium

Oil on canvas

Inscriptions

Signed u.l: "A. J. MOTLEY JR."

Dimensions

76.3 × 56 cm (30 1/8 × 22 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Through prior acquisitions of Friends of American Art Collection; through prior bequest of Marguerita S. Ritman

Reference Number

1995.239

Copyright

© Valerie Gerrard Browne / Chicago History Museum / Bridgeman Images

Extended information about this artwork

Jontyle Theresa Robinson and Wendy Greenhouse, The Art of Archibald J. Motley, Jr., exh. cat. (Chicago Historical Society, 1991), pages? ill.

Art Institute of Chicago Department of Museum Education, Many Faces: Modern Portraits and Identities (1997), cover ill., 24 (ill.), 25, 42 (ill.).

Amy M. Mooney, "Representing Race: Disjunctures in the Work of Archibald J. Motley, Jr.," Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, 2 (1999): 162-179, fig. 1.

Andrea D. Barnwell and Kirsten P. Buick, "A Portfolio of Works by African American Artists Continuing the Dialogue: A Work in Progress," Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 24, 2 (1999): 185.

Amy M. Mooney, Archibald J. Motley, Jr. (Pomegranate, 2004), 4-11, pl. 1.

Judith A. Barter et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 20090, cat. 145.

Chicago Historical Society, The Art of Archibald J. Motley, Jr., Oct 23, 1991-Mar 17, 1992; NY, Studio Museum of Harlem, Apr 5-Jun 10, 1992; Atlanta, GA, High Museum/Georgia-Pacific Gallery, Jun 29-Sep 25, 1992; Washington, DC, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Oct 10, 1992-Jan 3, 1993, cat. 6.

Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, On Process: Studio Themes, Jan 12-Mar 4, 2001, checklist (unnumbered).

Art Institute of Chicago, Kraft Center, Faces, Places, Inner Spaces.

Art Institute of Chicago, They Seek a City: Chicago and the Art of Migration, 1910-1950, Mar 3-Jun 3, 2013, cat. 24.

Durham, North Carolina, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist, Jan 30-Jun 1, 2014; Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum of Art, Jun 14-Sep 7, 2014; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Oct 19, 2014-Feb 1, 2015; Chicago Cultural Center, Mar 6-Aug 31, 2015; Whitney Museum of American Art, Fall 2015-Spring 2016 (Chicago only).

Shanghai Museum, Pathways to Modernism: American Art, 1865-1945, Sep 28, 2018-Jan 6, 2019, cat. 35.

Archibald J. Motley, Jr.; to Mrs. Flossie Motley (artist's sister), Chicago; to Charlotte C. Duplessis (daughter of Flossie Moore), Chicago; [Robert Henry Adams Fine Art], sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1995.

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Self-Portrait | The Art Institute of Chicago

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Show this image Self-Portrait c. 1920 Archibald John Motley Jr.American, 1891-1981 Chicagoan Archibald Motley attended the School of the Art Institute at a time when many prominent art academies denied entrance to African American students. His affiliation with the school was thus of great significance to him.

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Provenance

Joseph Jacob Isaacson [1859-1942], The Hague. (H.P. Bremmer, The Hague); Hugo Tutein Nolthenius [1863-1944], Delft, by 1904;[1] by inheritance to his brother, Jacques Tutein Nolthenius; on consignment with (Katz Gallery, Basel, Switzerland), probably by 1945;[2] on consignment with (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, no. 2845); sold 9 June 1947 to Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, New York;[3] gift 1998 to NGA.

Exhibition History

1904

Vincent van Gogh, Kunstzalen Oldenzeel, Rotterdam, 1904, no. 70.

1905

Vincent van Gogh, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1905, no. 195.

1906

Vincent van Gogh, Kunstzalen Oldenzeel, Rotterdam, 1906, no. 46.

1910

Vincent van Gogh, Rotterdamsch Kunstkring, 11 June - 10 July 1910, no. 33.

1912

Sonderbund Ausstellung, Cologne, 1912, no. 86, repro.

1927

Kersttentoonstelling, Museum Boymans, Rotterdam, 1927-1928, no. 34, repro.

1929

Exhibition of Dutch Art 1450-1900, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1929, no. 466.

1930

Vincent Van Gogh en zijn tijdgenooten, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 1930, no. 80.

1941

Exhibition of Tutein Nolthenius collection, Museum Paul Tetar van Elven, Delft, 1941.

1945

Vincent van Gogh, 25 Werke, Hollandhilfe, Galerie Schulthess, Basel, 1945, no. 12.

1946

Ecole de Paris, Kunsthalle Bern, 1946.

1948

21 Masterpieces by 7 Great Masters, Benefit for the Public Education Association, Paul Rosenberg Gallery, New York, November - December 1948, no. 12, repro.

1948

Vincent van Gogh 14 Masterpieces, M. Knoedler & Co., New York, March - April 1948, no. 14.

1949

Van Gogh: Paintings and Drawings, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago, 1949-1950, no. 119, as Portrait of the Artist, repro.

1951

Selections from Five New York Private Collections, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1951, unnumbered catalogue.

1955

Paintings from Private Collections, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1955, unnumbered catalogue.

1960

The John Hay Whitney Collection, Tate Gallery, London, 1960-1961, no. 32, repro.

1983

The John Hay Whitney Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1983, no. 25, repro.

1986

Van Gogh in Saint-Rémy and Auvers, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986-1987, no. 22, repro.

1990

Vincent van Gogh, Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, 1990, no. 99, repro., as Self-Portrait with Palette.

1998

Gifts to the Nation from Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998-1999, no cat.

2000

Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2000

Van Gogh Face to Face: The Portraits, The Detroit Institute of Arts; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2000-2001, no. 169, repro. (shown only in Boston).

2001

Van Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South, The Art Institute of Chicago; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 2001-2002, no. 119, repro. (shown only in Chicago; incorrect credit line and accession no. in exh. cat.).

2004

Van Gogh and Gauguin: An Artistic Dialogue in the South of France, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, 2004, no cat.

2007

Van Gogh and Expressionism, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam; Neue Galerie New York, 2006-2007, unnumbered catalogue, pl. 70 (shown only in New York).

2010

Loan to display with permanent collection, Norton Gallery and School of Art, West Palm Beach, 2010-2011.

2011

Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Art Center, Tokyo; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 2011, no. 20, repro.

2012

Loan to display with permanent collection, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, 2012-2013.

2014

Van Gogh/Artaud. Le suicidé de la société, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2014, no. 13, repro.

2016

Van Gogh's Bedrooms, The Art Institute of Chicago, 2016.

2019

Van Gogh and Britain, Tate, London, 2019.

Bibliography

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Images and Video

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Identity Tapestry Installation by Mary March