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
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.