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Self-Portrait

1951
Not on view
The critic Clement Greenberg pronounced De Niro “an important young abstract painter” upon seeing his 1946 show at Peggy Guggenheim’s gallery, Art of This Century. A student of Hans Hofmann, he followed his master’s admonition to locate a figure in planes where lines are carried to the edge of the picture. However, very few paintings in this style remain; most were lost or destroyed by the artist. When De Niro saw this picture exhibited at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1981, he asked to exchange it with a recent one, hoping he might keep it from view. Fortunately, Mrs. Newman declined. Like Earl Kerkam, De Niro looked to French painters for inspiration at this period, especially Pierre Bonnard and Georges Rouault.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Self-Portrait
  • Artist: Robert De Niro (American, Syracuse, New York 1922–1993 New York)
  • Date: 1951
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 35 1/8 in. × 30 in. (89.2 × 76.2 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: The Muriel Kallis Steinberg Newman Collection, Gift of Muriel Kallis Newman, 2006
  • Object Number: 2006.32.47
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

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