Existing comment:
Jessie Tarbox Beals, 1879-1942
Created early in his career, this bold self-portrait lith- ograph by Josef Albers reflects his interest in the new artistic trends of his day, particularly Expressionism and Cubism. This work not only suggests the young artist's mastery of recent modern art but also highlights his focus on the future and his capacity to innovate. Indeed, for Albers, self-portraiture provided critical terrain for artistic experimenta- tion, and this print serves more as an exercise in the development of form than it does as a psychological study. The intensity of the subject's expression, however, is nonetheless striking, and one can read in this fragmented self-representation something of the strains of World War I. Living in Germany when he made this work, Albers surely observed the bandaged faces and mutilated bodies of returning veterans.
1904 |