“The Painter” by William Strang, R.A.

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Self-Portrait (originally, The Painter)

William Strang (1859-1921)

1919

Oil on canvas

Support: 1168 × 1118 mm

Gallery: Tate

Presented by the Trustees of the Chantrey Bequest, 1921

Reference N03629

The original title implies Strang's wish to be remembered as a painter as well as an etcher. [Commentary continues below.]

Image capture, text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Image kindly released by the Tate on the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported) licence.

Despite his reputation as an etcher, Strang had long been exhibiting mainly oil-paintings. This one seems to place the artist in a long and distinguished tradition of portraiture: the Tate's gallery label of September 2004 pointed out that, despite his innovatory work drawing on recent artistic movements, "the direct gaze and symmetry of this picture owes an obvious debt to the self-portraits of Rembrandt. Here, in his old age, Strang refers to a traditional model of the artist as a workman secluded in his studio."

Bibliography

"William Strang: Self-Portrait." Tate. Web. 4 August 2020.

Created 4 August 2020