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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By photographing this interior scene at eye level and printing the image at life scale, JoAnn Verburg provides a point of entry for the viewer: one can easily imagine sitting at this table. At first glance, the work depicts a cheerful, everyday moment. Yet the milk carton’s images and descriptions of missing children inject the dangers of the world outside into the intimate setting. Verburg explains that the photograph involves “putting a lyrical, private moment together with difficulty–the political, public side of life.”

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Portraits Without People

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MISSING CHILDREN (CAPTIVA), 1988

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Portraits Without People

2

MISSING CHILDREN (CAPTIVA), 1988

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection