Self/Portrait
Self/Portrait

© Mel Bochner

Self/Portrait
Self/Portrait

On view

Photography

Self/Portrait,

2016

Mel Bochner, 1940–2025; born Pittsburgh, PA; died New York, NY; active New York, NY
2017-3
In Self/Portrait Bochner drew on his past writing, painting, and photography to further his investigation of systems of language, process, and meaning. For this work, he photographically reproduced a painting from 2013 onto mirrored glass. That 2013 painting in turn reinterpreted his now-iconic Self/Portrait, an ink drawing on graph paper made in 1966, the year he began to use the thesaurus as an artistic tool, exploring synonyms and linguistic similarities within language. This version of Self/Portrait generates a fractured reflection of the viewer’s own image, which shimmers through the words.
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More About This Object

In the Galleries: The Language of Portraiture

Information

Title
Self/Portrait
Dates

2016

Maker
Mel Bochner
Medium
Collodion silver positive on mirror
Dimensions
61 × 50.8 cm (24 × 20 in.) frame: 77.5 × 67.3 × 6.3 cm (30 1/2 × 26 1/2 × 2 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Kathleen Compton Sherrerd Fund for Acquisitions in American Art
Object Number
2017-3
Place Made

North America, United States, New York, New York

Signatures
Signed, dated, and numbered in ink on frame, verso
Description
SELF | PORTRAIT
EGO | PORTRAYAL
ONSELF | HEAD
I | PROFILE
I MYSELF | SILHOUETTE
ME | SHADOW FIGURE
NUMBER ONE | MINIATURE
IDENTITY | PICTURE
PERSONSHIP | IMAGE
SELFHOOD | REPRESENTATION
EGOHOOD | CARICATURE
ONENESS | DELINEATION
INNER-SELF | DEPICTION
INNER-MAN | SPITTING-IMAGE
sPIRIT | MIRROR
SOUL | SYMBOL
LIFE FORCE | ICON
BEING | LIFESTUDY
Culture
American
Type
collodion prints, photographs
Materials
mirrors
Techniques
wet collodion process
Subject
thesauri, words, self-portraits

The artist; [Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco, CA]; purchased by the Princeton University Art Museum, 2017.

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The Museum regularly researches its objects and their collecting histories, updating its records to reflect new information. We also strive to catalogue works of art using language that is consistent with how people, subjects, artists, and cultures describe themselves. As this effort is ongoing, the Museum’s records may be incomplete or contain terms that are no longer acceptable. We welcome your feedback, questions, and additional information that you feel may be useful to us. Email us at collectionsinfo@princeton.edu.

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