Self Portrait #8
Jerome Myers American
Not on view
Myers was associated with the group of early 20th-century urban realists inspired by the progressive teachings of Robert Henri, if not a formal member of the so-called Ashcan group. Like them, drawn to urban subject matter, Myers was among the first New York realists to paint the Eastern European and Italian immigrant neighborhoods of the Lower East Side, making the subject sympathetically his own. He also painted and drew countless self-portraits, creating a candid and probing record of his visage and character over time. This one, described as no. 8, reveals the artist’s precise drawing abilities—in direct contrast to the dark and ill-defined figures in his oil paintings. It is one of the few self-portraits Myers executed in pastel, and the first to enter The Met’s collection.
