Self-Portrait
Medium
Painting
Classification
Painting
Department
Smithsonian Collection
Museum
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Credit
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Given in memory of Charles Downing Lay and Laura Gill Lay by their children
Accession Number
1967.7.2
Tags
About this artwork
Oliver Ingraham Lay quietly established himself as a portrait painter and teacher in New York. When he died, his obituary in the New York Times listed only a handful of his paintings that had received attention during his lifetime. In this self-portrait, he pictured himself in his painterâs smock, the light of the studio falling softly across one side of his face and barely illuminating his eyes. It is as if Lay wanted to express the quiet nature of the career he had carved out for himself. A ...