Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Apr 2, 2016–Apr 2, 2017

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The American art world grew rapidly in the first half of the twentieth century, instilling artists with both confidence and uncertainty. Excited by new opportunities yet pressed to distinguish themselves from their renowned European counterparts, American artists became preoccupied with depicting themselves and their intimate circles of friends, lovers, and collaborators in other fields. One such community was the Whitney Museum itself, along with its precursor, the Whitney Studio Club. Many of the portraits on view here reflect its early history as a magnet for figures such as Edward Hopper at a time when few artists had found institutional support or even gathering places for likeminded colleagues. Other works capture the vital presence of émigrés, such as Marcel Duchamp and Joseph Stella, or point to the rising prominence of women artists, such as Isabel Bishop and Georgia O’Keeffe. Alternately styled as virtuoso, hero, technician, bohemian, or everyman, both the creators and subjects of these portraits staked a claim to their authority as artists, addressing themselves directly to an audience increasingly attuned to their endeavors.

Below is a selection of works from Portrait of the Artist.

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In the mid-1960s, the artist Sturtevant began to make what she termed “repetitions” of artworks by contemporaries such as Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, and Andy Warhol. She also reimagined numerous works by Marcel Duchamp, whose provocative creations questioned the notion of originality in art and set an important precedent for Conceptual art. Here she has restaged a theatrical 1924 portrait of Duchamp taken by his frequent collaborator, Man Ray. She has replicated the way that Duchamp coated his face and neck in soapsuds, lathering her hair—as he had—into two stiff spikes that resemble the winged helmet of Mercury, the Roman messenger god. Through this recreation, Sturtevant also echoes Duchamp’s ambiguously gendered self-representations, in which he frequently appeared in the guise of his female alter ego, Rrose Sélavy. None of Sturtevant’s works look exactly like the originals (in this instance, to begin with, she didn’t physically resemble Duchamp). They are not copies but interpretations, alternative versions of “masterworks” that undercut conventional ideas of originality and authenticity.

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Portrait of the Artist

3

DUCHAMP MAN RAY PORTRAIT, 1966

Artists

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Human Interest: Portraits from the Whitney’s Collection

Portrait of the Artist

3

DUCHAMP MAN RAY PORTRAIT, 1966

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition in the Whitney's collection

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection