Selbstbildnis (Self-Portrait)
1921/1922
Medium
softground etching on wove paper
Dimensions
plate: 12 x 9 cm (4 3/4 x 3 9/16 in.) sheet: 26.5 x 19.8 cm (10 7/16 x 7 13/16 in.)
Classification
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund
Accession Number
1985.32.1
Art Historical Context
Lovis Corinth's *Selbstbildnis* (Self-Portrait), around 1921/1922, captures the German artist's introspective gaze in the final years of his life. A pivotal figure in late 19th- and early 20th-century German art, Corinth bridged Impressionism's luminous effects with Expressionism's raw emotional intensity. By this time, in his mid-60s and recovering from a debilitating stroke a decade earlier, his self-portraits often revealed a vulnerability and unflinching honesty, reflecting both personal mortality and the era's post-World War I disillusionment. Rendered as a softground etching on wove pap...
About the Artist
Lovis Corinth · 1858–1925
Lovis Corinth, born Franz Heinrich Louis on July 21, 1858, in Tapiau, East Prussia (now Gvardeysk, Russia), to a tanner father, displayed prodigious drawing talent from childhood. He began formal training at the Königsberg Academy in 1876, then moved to the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1880 to 1884, studying under Ludwig von Löfftz and briefly Franz von Defregger, where he absorbed a Realis...