TitleSelf-Portrait
Artist
Clarence Holbrook Carter
(American, 1904 - 2000)
Date1950
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsUnframed: 20 1/8 × 24 1/8 in.
Framed: 27 × 31 × 2 1/2 in.
SignedSigned upper left: "Clarence H. Carter '50"
SubmissionANA diploma presentation, April 3, 1950
Credit LineNational Academy of Design, New York, NY
Object number201-P
Label TextCarter remarked that early in his career he "was interested in the life that I knew around me as material for my art. Along with that was a keen interest in things that were not always tangible. Death had a strong pull, the unseen was keenly felt. In other words, there were metaphysical aspects to reality, real yet unreal."At this time Carter was a great admirer of the Italian Primitives, including such artists as Duccio, Fra Angelico and Domenico Veneziano. In their works he found what he was searching for, "an inner, unexplainable mystery and calm - beautiful color that was abstract and simple, but always related to some need other than just being color relations."
