Self-Portrait

Artist Robert Ballagh (b. 1943)

Date1969

MediumScreenprint on paper

Dimensions35.3 x 25.7 cm

ClassificationsPrint

Credit LineCollection & image © Hugh Lane Gallery. Purchased, 1975.

Object number1394

Description'…some artists, to avoid the charge of vanity, refuse to furnish any likeness at all. Vermeer's "The art of Painting" which shows a rear view of the artist in his studio is a wonderful example of such avoidance. My two works in this exhibition follow this particular tradition, although I have to confess that when I made 'Self Portrait' 1969 part of my motivation for not providing a likeness was probably my inability to do so at the time as I had only been painting for few short years. On the other hand the print also reflects some of the themes that underscored my first exhibition in 1969 which engaged with the big issues of the day, for example, the dehumanizing political and economic systems that robbed us of our individuality and reduced us all to mere numbers, cyphers.' Robert Ballagh (2010)

On View

Not on view