Self-Portrait

Malvin Gray Johnson, born Greensboro, NC 1896-died New York City 1934 · 1934

In Self-Portrait, Malvin Gray Johnson addresses the viewer with hat in hand and a somber gaze. By placing his painting Negro Masks (1932) in the background, Johnson presents his own face as a mask among others. Collapsing foreground and background, he uses modernist techniques to assert his identity as a modernist painter.