Self-Portrait

William Bailey

1975 · Gouache on paper · Modern and Contemporary Art

Regarded for his long tenure as a professor of art at Yale University, Bailey is known primarily as a painter of finely rendered and hyper-illusionistic, but fictional, still lifes. Thus, this self-portrait is quite anomalous in his oeuvre. Bailey shows himself bearded and wearing a blue jacket, as he returns the viewer’s gaze plainly against a warm, light-brown ground. The palette is generally muted, reminiscent of Picasso’s Rose and Blue Periods, which imbues the image with a contemplative quietude.

Artist

William Bailey

Date

1975

Medium

Gouache on paper

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Gift of Steven Kossak, The Kronos Collection, 2017