CC0 · no rights reserved
Self-Portrait
From the collection of Smithsonian American Art Museum. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
In Self-Portrait, Malvin Gray Johnson addresses the viewer with hat in hand and a somber gaze. By placing his painting Negro Masks (1932) in the background, Johnson presents his own face as a mask among others. Collapsing foreground and background, he uses modernist techniques to assert his identity as a modernist painter.
Smithsonian American Art Museum’s own descriptionSubjects
Credit lineSelf-Portrait. 1934. Malvin Gray Johnson, born Greensboro, NC 1896-died New York City 1934. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation. CC0.
