The works in this section vary greatly from realistic self-portraits such as the ones by Hogarth and Ward, to a nightmarish etching by Paul Klee, The Comedian, one of several which refer to the characters in Greek tragedies, and to the very soul of the artist himself. Klee felt that this work was the most personal he had done, and “its expression flowed from his deepest soul.” Klee described the grotesque subject of this print as “a grotesque mask on a grave and moral head…The mask represents art, behind it hides man.”1
The self-portrait of the youthful Warhol taken in a photo booth in 1963, reminds us of the artist’s now coolly familiar examination of himself, and represents the first of his forays into photography and mechanical reproduction that would influence all of his later work.
1MoMA, NY
Lynd Ward | Fega Blumberg | William Hogarth | Pablo Picasso | G. R. “Gene” Swenson | Paul Klee
Lynd Ward
Self Portrait, 1929 (published in “God’s Man” a wordless novel by Ward)
Woodblock print
Gift of Alan Chidsey, 73.11
Fega Blumberg
Self Portrait, c. 1912-30
Oil on canvas
Gift of Leon Pomerance, 72.5b
William Hogarth
William Hogarth Painting the Comic Muse, 1764
Engraving
Gift of Audrey McMahon, P202
Pablo Picasso
Peintre Travaillant (Painter Working), c. 1927
Illustration for Honore de Balzac’s “Le chef d’oeuvre innconu”
(The Unknown Masterpiece)
Etching
Gift of Dr. Joseph Brewer, 73.52
G. R. “Gene” Swenson
“The Personality of the Artist,” 1964 (Gallery announcement for the Stable Gallery April 21- May 9, 1964) Photo and text by G. R. Swenson
Photo of Warhol’s photo booth photo and text by G. R. Swenson.
Offset lithograph
Gift of Allen Rosenbaum, 2013.7.2
Paul Klee
The Comedian (Komiker), from the series Inventions (Inventionen), 1904
from portfolio “The Prints of Paul Klee”
Etching and aquatint
Gift of Queens College Library, 2008.00.116
Images by Jacqui Hopely Monkell