Self-Portrait, 1953, Oil on board, Collection of the Estate of David C. Driskell, Maryland

Audio Description

Self-Portrait was painted in 1953 and is oil on board. It is from the Collection of the Estate of David C. Driskell in Maryland.

The artist David Driskell painted this vertical self-portrait in oil paints on board. The artist portrays himself as a Black man with short hair, thick eyebrows, dark eyes, and a mustache. He is resting his head in his right hand and wears a blue collared shirt with streaks of yellow and white. The contour and folds of the shirt all have thick black outlines. Behind the artist are two distinct patterns: on the left, green and blue with dark lines that look like the veins of leaves; and on the right, yellow and blue with dark squiggly lines. Driskell used a lot of thick brushstrokes, and the contrast in light and dark shades suggests a light source shining on the right side of his body. His signature is painted in red paint in the bottom right corner, along with “53”, the year it was painted.

Label Copy

Self-Portrait was painted in 1953 and is oil on board. It is from the Collection of the Estate of David C. Driskell in Maryland.

Driskell made many self-portraits over the course of his career. He used a method that favored individual insight over drawing from life. These “psychological self-portraits,” as he called them, reflect his assessment of his facial characteristics, temperament, and age in the moment. This painting from 1953 is an early formal self-portrait, completed while he was a student at Howard University. The confidence and sense of inner awareness that it projects anticipate the bearing of his later self-portraits.

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