TitleSelf-Portrait
Artist
Alfred Kappes
(1850-1894)
Date1983
MediumOil on canvas mounted on panel
DimensionsUnframed: 21 × 17 in.
SubmissionANA diploma exchange presentation
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number683-P
Label TextKappes' original diploma self portrait was accepted by the Academy's council on April 16, 1888. Painted under a deadline while the artist was ill, the portrait never satisfied him. On March 13, 1893, he wrote to J. C. Nicoll at the Academy, expressing his desire to replace the portrait with a better one, not yet finished. This he did on May 1, but without obtaining the prior consent of the Council. That evening he wrote an apology to Nicoll: "It was thoughtless on my part and I regret it very much. A few days before, on a visit to the Academy [the original portrait] chanced to meet my eye and gave me so much of a fright, that in my desire to get hold of and to put it out of existence, I unwittingly trangressed the rule of common politeness."The substitute self portrait, painted a year before his death, is informal and penetrating. The probing, but deeply shadowed eyes and the unkempt, tousled brown hair lend a compelling directness to his dramatically illuminated image.
