Self-Portrait
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of the Harmon Foundation
Accession Number
1967.57.30
Rights
Public Domain
Tags
African Americanpainterself-portrait
About this artwork
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.