Who Are They?/Who Am I? is drawn from the museum’s collection, which holds several hundred artworks that can be understood as portraits. This expansive exhibition presents portraits and self-portraits of and by a wide range of artists such as stage and screen actors, authors, composers, dancers, fashion designers, filmmakers, musicians, visual artists, and writers, all from different eras and depicted in a variety of media including paintings, drawings, photographs, sculpture, and prints.
Artworks vary from highly resolved formal portraits to works better described as informal sketches or snapshots and even more conceptual portraits, and are more personal or intimate. They range in date from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries. Many are insightful, in various ways revealing information about the artist’s choices as well as portraying their subjects. Using a variety of visual approaches, the portraits capture the subjects’ appearance, mood, character, information about their time and environment, and they sometimes even tell stories.
Who Are They?
Works in this category focus on portraits of other artists. This, the larger section, includes over one hundred artworks, some of which are listed below by artist/subject.
Richard Avedon/Herman Wouk, Peggy Bacon/Marsden Hartley, Leonard Baskin/Odilon Redon, Cecil Beaton/Sonje Heni, Brassaï/Henri Matisse, Robert Capa/Pablo Picasso and Françoise Gilot, William Claxton/Chet Baker and Liliane Rovère, Thomas Cornell/Michelangelo, Eileen Darby/Lee J. Cobb, Ralph Bartlett Goddard/Charles Dickens, Walker Evans/James Agee, Philip Halsman/Marilyn Monroe, Yousuf Karsh/Georgia O’Keeffe, James Lechay/Beauford Delaney, Jacques Lubin/Jacques Callot, Linda McCartney/Bob Dylan, John Minihan/Samuel Beckett, Barbara Pollack/ William Pope.L, Eli Reed/Joan Baez, Arthur Rothstein/John Marin, David Seltzer/Jack Kerouac, Rena Small/Jean-Michel Basquait, Steven Speliotis/John Cage, Carl Sprinchorn/Jane Eyre, Joyce Tenneson/Dame Judi Dench, William Weegee/Eddie Cantor, Marguerite Zorach/Harry Hathaway.
The Who Am I?
Art in this category focuses on self-portraits, including artists listed below.
Sigund Abeles, Jack Beal, Joseph Beuys, Ashley Bryan, Eugene Francois Deveria, Fritz Eichenberg, Robert Farber, Robert Feintuch, Donna Ferrato, Samuel Fosso, Jay Gould, Lily Harmon, Anne Harris, Charlie Hewitt, Frances Hodsden, Brad Kahlhamer, John Muench, John O’Reilly, Rona Pondick, Claire Seidl, Hollis Sigler, Joyce Treiman, Beth Van Hoesen, Claire Van Vliet, Jacques Villon, Xu Bing.
John Minihan, Samuel Beckett, London, 1980, gelatin silver print, 10 x 9 in., Gift of Robert Flynn Johnson in memory of Dr. Robert Andrew Johnson, class of ’36, 2019.6.9William Claxton, Chet Baker and Lillian Rovère, ca. 1955 (printed 1987), gelatin silver print, 10 1/8 x 8 1/8 in., Gift of Robert Flynn Johnson in memory of Dr. Robert Andrew Johnson, class of ’36, 2019.6.12Rona Pondick, from the series The Metamorphosis of an Object, 2009, archival pigment print, 15 3/4 x 13 in., Bates College Museum of Art purchase with the Elizabeth A. Gregory MD ’38 Fund, and the Jean LeMire Payne ’53 Museum Fund, 2017.12.1.aClaire Van Vliet, Self Portrait in a Mirror, 1960, woodcut, 15 x 14 in., Gift of the Artist, 2018.1.8James Lechay, Beauford Delaney, n.d., oil on canvas, 30 x 16 in., Bates College Museum of Art purchase with the Synergy Fund Diversify the Collections Program, 2021.7.1Eileen Darby, Lee J. Cobb in the play “Death of a Salesman”, 1948, silver gelatin print, 14 x 11 in., Gift of Robert Flynn Johnson, 2021.11.9Steven Speliotis, John Cage at 80, 1992, silver gelatin print, 14 in., Gift of Robert Flynn Johnson, 2021.11.11Donna Ferrato, Enlightened, Lorain, OH, 1976, photograph, 25 x 30 in., Gift of Karan and Elizabeth Jain, 2018.17.8Yousuf Karsh, Georgia O’Keefe, 1956, silver gelatin print, 9 1/2 x 7 1/2 in., Gift of Robert Flynn Johnson in Memory of Robert Andrew Johnson, 2009.2.1Joyce Wahl Treiman, The Joker and Me, 1985, oil on canvas, 43 3/4 x 43 3/4 in., Bates College Museum of Art Purchase with the Dorothy Stiles Blanfort ’31 Fund, 2019.3.1Philippe Halsman, Marilyn Monroe, 1962, silver gelatin print, 10 x 8 in., Gift of Robert Flynn Johnson in memory of Minna Flynn Johnson, 2007.2.1Robert Feintuch, Feet Up, 2013, polymer emulsion on honeycomb panel, 23 3/4 x 19 in., Bates College Museum of Art purchase with gift from Leander W. Smith, 2014.1.1Arthur Rothstein, John Marin in his Studio, Hoboken, New Jersey, 1949, photograph, 10 3/4 x 13 3/4 in., Gift of Frederick M. Myers ‘86, 1986.12.27Samuel Fosso, Self Portrait, 1977, silver gelatin print, 24 x 20 in., Bates College Museum of Art purchase in part with funds from the Jean LeMire Payne ’53 Fund, 2004.16.2Edward Steichen, Jack Nicholson as the Joker, ca. 1989, Agfa-chrome resin coated print, 10 x 8 in., Gift of Robert Flynn Johnson in memory of Dr. Robert Andrew Johnson, 2018.4.10Fritz Eichenberg, The Dream of Reason, n.d., wood engraving, 9 x 7 in., Bates College Museum of Art purchase with the Dr. Robert A. and Minna F. Johnson ’36 Art Acquisition Fund, 2015.8.6Jacques Villon, Self Portrait, n.d., ink on paper, 10 7/8 x 8 1/4 in., Bates College Museum of Art purchase, 2021.10.1Joseph Beuys, Joseph Beuys, fur Tobias Bach, 1972, postcard with red ink, 5 3/4 x 4 in., Bates College Museum of Art Purchase, 2022.5.1Sigmund Abeles, Self-Identification, 1964, etching and soft ground, 8 x 6 in., Gift of the Artist, 1995.5.24Arthur (Usher) Fellig “Weegee”, Edie Cantor (Distortion), ca. 1955-60, vintage gelatin silver print, 10 x 8 in., Gift of Robert Flynn Johnson in memory of Minna Flynn Johnson, 2007.2.4Claire Seidl, Porch Dinner, gelatin silver print, 19 7/8 x 16 in., Bates College Museum of Art purchase with the Abraham and Bella Margolis Fund, and the Dorothy Stiles Blankfort ’31 Fund, 2014.10.1Sam McMillan “The Dot Man”, World Peace and Harmony, n.d., oil on wood, 18 x 22 in., Jane Costello Wellehan Endowment Fund, 2019.4.32Leonard Baskin, Camille Corot, n.d., wood engraving, 7 1/4 x 4 5/8 in., Gift of John and Janet Marquess, 1989.8.1.bDavid Seltzer, Untitled (Kerouac), 2011, print, 13 1/4 x 18 7/8 in., Gift of Burt Sheaffer, 2012.8.4
