| Maker(s): | Clemente, Francesco
| | Culture: | Italian (1952 - )
| | Title: | Self Portrait with Heart and Leaves
| | Date Made: | 1980
| | Type: | Painting
| | Materials: | oil and gold paint on canvas
| | Measurements: | stretcher: 17 3/4 in x 13 3/4 in; 45.085 cm x 34.925 cm
| | Narrative Inscription: | date and signature in black pen on verso: 9 80 / Francesco / Clemente
| | Accession Number: | SC 2012.1.5
| | Credit Line: | Gift of The Pokross Art Collection, donated in accordance with the wishes of Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 by her children, Joan Pokross Curhan, class of 1959, William R. Pokross and David R. Pokross Jr. in loving memory of their parents, Muriel Kohn Pokross, class of 1934 and David R. Pokross
| | Museum Collection: | Smith College Museum of Art
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Description:
figure of a male with proper right hand holding a heart
Label Text:
Born in Naples, Italy, Francesco Clemente began his career studying architecture but then changed course to pursue art. His first visit to India in the early 1970s was transformative, and he would return to the country for extended periods to study Hindu spiritual life and to work with miniaturist painters and artisans. During that decade he concentrated on making works on paper, developing the subjects for which he is known: the body, sexuality, spirituality, dreamlike states, and his own image.
This double self-portrait is one of many that the artist has created over the course of his career. According to Clemente, “A self-portrait is a way to register the constant appearing and disappearing of the self.” In this painting he shows himself holding and pointing to a heart shape, which may double as a painting palette. Blue paint rises from the heart over his head like smoke; greatly thinned areas of black paint mark his face and form, which is rendered in outline with quick brushstrokes on the raw canvas. A second self-portrait, looking over the shoulder of the full-figure portrait, directly engages the gaze of the viewer.
When this portrait was painted in 1980, Clemente had received international acclaim at the Venice Biennale as a leader of the “return to figuration,” a movement that was called the Transavanguardia in Italy and Neo-Expressionism in the United States. Clemente moved his family to New York in 1981. His multifaceted work since that time has involved a wide range of media and collaborations with Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, poet Allen Ginsberg, and film director Alfonso Cuaròn, among others.
Link to share this object record:
https://museums.fivecolleges.edu/detail.php?t=objects&type=ext&id_number=SC+2012.1.5 |
