Self-Portrait

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Self-Portrait
Self-Portrait
Self-Portrait
TitleSelf-Portrait
Artist (American, 1875 - 1941)
Date1927
MediumOil on composition board
DimensionsUnframed: 30 × 24 in. Framed: 36 × 30 × 2 in.
SignedSigned upper left: "Ellen Emmet Rand/1927"
SubmissionANA diploma presentation, November 14, 1927
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number1042-P
Label TextRand was a successful artist whose work, in the depths of the Great Depression, was instrumental in the financial support of her husband and three sons. In 1930 alone she earned over $74,000 from portrait commissions, and one of her three paintings of Franklin D. Roosevelt is his official White House portrait. A highly skilled portraitist, Rand would naturally have considered exactly how she wanted history to view her. In her self-portrait of 1927 she is unmistakably the professional artist at work in her studio, armed with the tools of her profession. She makes direct eye contact with the viewer in a businesslike, even mannish manner, wearing an artist’s smock, eye glasses, and a fedora.
Collections
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