Brown gained international acclaim as an accomplished watercolorist, and here he uses the medium to present his own image through flattened forms and matte surfaces. Enclosed by the deep blue tonalities of an indistinct interior, he conveys a pensive mood as he gazes into a mirror, setting up an echo chamber of dualities. We see the artist, implausibly, in both profile and three-quarter views; he contemplates himself in the mirror, while his reflection stares at us. After completing a master’s degree in Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania, Brown became the first African American hired by the U.S. government’s inaugural work-relief program for the arts, and he later worked for the Works Progress Administration in Philadelphia.
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Title:Self-Portrait
Artist:Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr. (American, Wilmington, North Carolina 1907–1994 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
Date:ca. 1941
Medium:Watercolor, charcoal, and graphite on paper
Dimensions:20 1/4 × 15 3/8 in. (51.4 × 39.1 cm)
Classification:Drawings
Credit Line:Gift of Pennsylvania W. P. A., 1943
Accession Number:43.46.4
Pennsylvania W. P. A. (until 1943; their gift to MMA)
Boston. University of Massachusetts. April 30–May 8, 1949.
Brooklyn. Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. "Selected Works by Black Artists from the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art," April 14–June 14, 1976, unnumbered cat.
New York. Studio Museum in Harlem. "New York/Chicago: WPA and the Black Artist," November 13, 1977–January 8, 1978, unnumbered cat. (dated ca. 1936).
Chicago Public Library Cultural Center Exhibit Hall. "WPA and the Black Artist, Chicago and New York," March 22–April 23, 1978, unnumbered cat. (dated 1936).
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Junior Museum. "Portraits: A Selection from the Department of 20th Century Art," November 25, 1980–February 16, 1981, no catalogue [on view from January 9, 1981].
Philadelphia. Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies. "Samuel Brown: A Retrospective," January 31–March 25, 1983, unnumbered cat. (p. 12; dated 1941).
Pleasantville, N. Y. Reader's Digest. "Faces and Figures: Selected Works by Black Artists from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 12–April 1, 1988, brochure no. 8.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "African-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," January 15–May 4, 2003, extended to July 6, 2003, no. 10.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Lens and the Mirror, Part 1: Modern Self-Portraits from the Collection," April 7–July 12, 2009, no catalogue.
Lowery S. Sims. Selected Works by Black Artists from the Collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. [New York], 1976, unpaginated.
Lowery Sims. "The Metropolitan: Collecting Black Art." Routes Magazine 3 (May 1980), p. 24.
Phoebe Flory, with Dorothy Short Paul, and Eliot O'Hara. Watercolor Portraiture: A Practical Guide. New York, 1985, pp. 110, 114, pl. 44.
Lisa Gail Collins inAfrican-American Artists, 1929–1945: Prints, Drawings, and Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2003, p. 33, no. 10, ill.
Denise Murrell. "The Mirror of History: Black Artists as Antiracist Activists." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 78 (Fall 2020), pp. 34, 36, fig. 29 (color).
Zachary Small. "Met Announces Harlem Renaissance Show." New York Times (August 23, 2023), p. C5, ill. (color).
Denise Murrell inThe Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism. Ed. Denise Murrell. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2024, ppl. 17–18, colorpl. 28, ill. p. 6 (color, detail).
Samuel Joseph Brown, Jr. (American, Wilmington, North Carolina 1907–1994 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
ca. 1940
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