Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

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Is likeness essential to portraiture? These works, spanning the past one hundred years, raise this question as they present alternate means for capturing an individual’s personality, values, and experiences. At the twentieth century’s outset, the rise of abstraction and advances in photography spurred many artists to devise new, non-figurative approaches to portraiture. In their paintings, American modernists such as Charles Demuth, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Florine Stettheimer frequently adopted symbols—including abstract geometries, typographical characters, and natural forms—as surrogates for themselves and their closest companions.

Artists have continued to experiment with symbolic portraiture in the decades since World War II, whether hinting at private meanings by depicting intimate spaces and personal possessions or referencing themselves through the tools of their craft. When the face or the body does appear in the works featured here, it is shown at a remove, as a representation within a representation. Forgoing physical likeness in favor of allusion and enigma, all of these works expand the possibilities of what a portrait can be, while also acknowledging that the quest to depict others—and even ourselves—is elusive.

Below is a selection of works from Portraits Without People.

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Anthony Hernandez photographed Los Angeles homeless encampments, most near the city’s freeways, over a period of three years. This site betrays only the barest traces of human presence: a flattened cardboard box that was likely used as shelter or a bed and bits of refuse. The series’ images are generally devoid of people, an absence that highlights how the homeless are often invisible. “Nobody else waslooking,” Hernandez explained. “That’s what I forced them to do with these pictures.”

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Portraits Without People

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LANDSCAPES FOR THE HOMELESS, #17, 1989

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Portraits Without People

2

LANDSCAPES FOR THE HOMELESS, #17, 1989

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection