Self-Portrait, 1907, oil on canvas, Museum Purchase with funds provided by the Dr. Stanley and Mickey Kaplan Foundation, 2008.58

Verbal Description

Hello, my name is Dr. Julie Aronson. I am the curator of American paintings, sculpture, and drawings; and the curator of Henry Mosler Behind the Scenes: In Celebration of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial. I will be reading the verbal description for Self-Portrait.

Painted in 1907, Self-Portrait is in oil on canvas. It was a museum purchase with funds provided by the Dr. Stanley and Mickey Kaplan Foundation. Its accession number is 2008.58

Mosler’s Self-Portrait measures 25 inches by 20 inches. The subject poses against a deep brown background dappled with shades of ochre.

Mosler’s head, shoulders, and upper chest occupy most of the portrait-oriented picture. He looks directly at the viewer; his brows are slightly drawn together. The light is coming from the left side, illuminating that side of his face. The right side of his face is in shadow. Mosler is a balding white man with a fringe of wavy medium brown hair around his head. His temples show hints of white hair. He wears round gold wire-rimmed glasses and has brown eyes. Mosler has a light brown mustache with flecks of white. He also has a small tuft of hair under his bottom lip. The artist wears a white stand-up collared shirt with a black necktie. He wears a black suit jacket speckled with the same ochre color found in the background.

Label Text

Hello, my name is Dr. Julie Aronson. I am the curator of American paintings, sculpture, and drawings; and the curator of Henry Mosler Behind the Scenes: In Celebration of the Jewish Cincinnati Bicentennial. I will be reading the label for Self-Portrait.

Painted in 1907, Self-Portrait is in oil on canvas. It was a museum purchase with funds provided by the Dr. Stanley and Mickey Kaplan Foundation. Its accession number is 2008.58

A description of Mosler’s public persona appeared in the Cincinnati Times Star in 1889:

As a conversationalist he is, of course, very entertaining by reason of his fund of unusual knowledge, and none the less so because of his cordial, attractive manner, and ready command of several languages.

This amiable Mosler is nowhere evident in this self-portrait, a sober, intense, and introspective affair. The artist, at about sixty-six, looks out at us through his spectacles with a direct gaze and a slight scowl. The light, which strongly illuminates the left side of the face and leaves the other in deep shadow, makes the portrait all the moodier. Mosler painted the dark areas thinly, reserving thicker paint for the ochre tones of the hair and mustache and the bright highlights on the nose and forehead.

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