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Self-Portrait (Left Profile)

Self-Portrait (Left Profile)
Usage Conditions Apply
Artist
Josef Albers, 19 Mar 1888 - 25 Mar 1976
Sitter
Josef Albers, 19 Mar 1888 - 25 Mar 1976
Date
1916
Type
Print
Medium
Lithograph on paper
Dimensions
Sheet: 30.3 x 23cm (11 15/16 x 9 1/16")
Mat: 44.8 x 36.8cm (17 5/8 x 14 1/2")
Topic
Self-portrait
Josef Albers: Male
Josef Albers: Visual Arts\Artist\Painter
Josef Albers: Education and Scholarship\Educator\Professor\University
Josef Albers: Visual Arts\Art instructor
Portrait
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; the Ruth Bowman and Harry Kahn Twentieth-Century American Self-Portrait Collection
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Copyright
© Artist Rights Society
Object number
NPG.2002.188
Exhibition Label
Created early in his career, this bold self-portrait lithograph by Josef Albers reflects his interest in the new artistic trends of his day, particularly Expressionism and Cubism. This work not only suggests the young artist’s mastery of recent modern art but also highlights his focus on the future and his capacity to innovate. Indeed, for Albers, self-portraiture provided critical terrain for artistic experimentation, and this print serves more as an exercise in the development of form than it does as a psychological study. The intensity of the subject’s expression, however, is nonetheless striking, and one can read in this fragmented self-representation something of the strains of World War I. Living in Germany when he made this work, Albers surely observed the bandaged faces and mutilated bodies of returning veterans.
Este intenso autorretrato litográfico de Josef Albers, realizado temprano en su carrera, refleja su interés en las nuevas corrientes artísticas de su día, sobre todo el expresionismo y el cubismo. Esta obra no solo sugiere el dominio que tenía el joven artista del arte moderno, sino también su visión de futuro y su capacidad innovadora. En efecto, para Albers, el autorretrato supuso un terreno vital de experimen- tación artística, y esta obra gráfica constituye más un ejercicio de desarrollo de formas que un estudio psicológico. Sin embargo, la intensidad de la expre- sión es impresionante, y en la representación frag- mentada podemos leer huellas de los estragos de la Primera Guerra Mundial. Albers vivía en Alemania cuando realizó este autorretrato y sin duda observó las caras vendadas y los cuerpos mutilados de los veteranos que regresaban del frente.
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Location
Currently not on view