TitleThe Blank Canvas
Artist
Alphaeus Philemon Cole
(American, 1876 - 1988)
Date1937
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 48 7/8 × 37 3/8 in.
Framed: 54 × 43 1/8 × 2 1/4 in.
SignedSigned at bottom left corner: "Alphaeus P. Cole".
SubmissionNA diploma presentation, May 6, 1941
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number253-P
Label TextThe Blank Canvas was exhibited at the National Academy’s annual exhibition of 1937. Cole was elected as an Associate member of the Academy in 1930, and that year gave a smaller and more conventional self-portrait to this institution. In the late 1930s he donated The Blank Canvas. Cole perhaps felt that this wry and spirited depiction of himself at work on a painting of the nude in his studio was a more representative image of himself. Cole attained proficiency in painting the figure early in life while studying in Florence and Paris.
