Self-Portrait, from Camera Work: Volume 2
Date1903
Label TextSteichen was a painter and printmaker as well as a photographer. The rich tonal variation in his early photographs, infusing them with mood and mystery, was one aspect of his painterly ambitions for the new medium. Here, costumed and dramatically lit, he shows himself as a painter with brush and palette-as though this were a painted self-portrait rather than a photograph. This is a clever and playful enactment of his assertion that 'the artist, not the medium, produces a work of art.
Object number84.160.2
Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Portrait Collaborations 19th-Century Works from the Permanent Collection", May 31, 2001 - January 1, 2002
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Modern in America", July 8, 2004 - February 27, 2005 (7/8/2004 - 2/27/2005)
Pullman, Washington, Washington State University, "Shadowy Evidence: The Photography of Edward S. Curtis and His Contemporaries", November 6, 1990- December 21, 1990, (11/06/1990 - 12/21/1990)
Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, "Shadowy Evidence: The Photography of Edward S. Curtis and His Contemporaries", August 10, 1989- November 19, 1989, (08/10/1989 - 11/19/1989)Credit LineMary Arrington Small Estate Acquisition Fund
Dimensions12 1/4 x 8 5/8 in. (31.1 x 21.9 cm)
MediumPhotogravure in magazine
Object number: 84.160.4
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