Self-Portrait

Robert De Niro

1951 · Oil on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

The critic Clement Greenberg pronounced De Niro “an important young abstract painter” upon seeing his 1946 show at Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery, Art of This Century. A student of Hans Hofmann, he followed his master’s admonition to locate a figure in planes where lines are carried to the edge of the picture. However, very few paintings in this style remain; most were lost or destroyed by the artist. When De Niro saw this picture exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1981, he asked to exchange it with a recent one, hoping he might keep it from view. Fortunately, Mrs. Newman declined. Like Earl Kerkam, De Niro looked to French painters for inspiration at this period, especially Pierre Bonnard and Georges Rouault.

Artist

Robert De Niro

Date

1951

Medium

Oil on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006