Skip Ribbon Commands
Skip to main content
Seattle Art Museum (SAM)
menu
Skip Navigation Linksvisit

This Head Is Mine

This Head Is Mine

1981

Robert Arneson

American, 1930-1992

Arneson's self-portraits mix irreverence, informality, and humor. From a distance this head looks suspiciously like a straightforward echo of a classical bronze, complete with empty eye sockets. Close inspection reveals that Arneson has "defaced" it with such punning phrases as: "It Is eye; I am it; it is me; find this mind of mine." The wordplay continues on the pedestal, which is decorated with a daunting alphabetical list of "self" adjective, beginning with "self-abased." "Me & My Self" is impressed word by word on the four sides of the base.


Bronze
24 x 19 x 20 in. (60.96 x 48.26 x 50.8 cm)
Gift of Manuel Neri
84.222
location
Not currently on view

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Recent Modern Acquisitions", August 27 - October 18, 1987, (08/27/1987 - 10/18/1987)

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Collection Highlights: 1945 To The Present", September 12, 1996-June 1, 1997, (09/12/1996 - 06/01/1997)
Published Referenceshttp://www.verisimilitudo.com/arneson/artworks.htm

Seattle Art Museum. “Acquisitions.” Seattle Art Museum Calendar (May 1985): p. 3.

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

Learn more about Equity at SAM