What Is Portraiture

What is Portraiture?

September 24, 2010 - November 6, 2011

The works in this permanent collection exhibition were selected to challenge and extend conventional concepts of portraiture. A portrait is usually considered to be an artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant in order to display the likeness, personality, and even the mood of the sitter who is shown in a still position. Although a number of the works on view focus on a single person in stasis, others feature multiple figures in action. Furthermore, historical, modern, and contemporary American and Native American works in a variety of mediums are organized into several broad thematic sections.

Portraits of artists, heroes, leaders, and thinkers are differentiated from other images of men and women. Portrayals of children constitute another group and complement a section celebrating a sense of interconnectedness as found in relationships between friends, family, and community members. The usual definition of portraiture is particularly extended in the final section of this exhibition, featuring works with multiple figures that address a significant range of historical and religious subjects.

Gail Stavitsky, Chief Curator & Twig Johnson, Senior Curator Emerita of Native American Art

All Museum programs are made possible, in part, by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and by funds from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Vance Wall Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Museum Members.

Image Credit: Peter Jacobs (b. 1960), Darwin, 1997, Mixed media collage, 49 ¼ x 49 ¼ x 2 ½ in., Gift of the artist, Montclair Art Museum 1999.19.