Faceless Figures

Jean Arp
Sculpture Classique
1964
marble
Albright-Knox Art Gallery,
Buffalo, New York

 Daniel Arsham 
Hidden Figure
2020
painted fibreglass
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Francis Bacon
Figure Study I
1946
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Giorgio de Chirico
Il Trovatore
ca. 1924
oil on canvas
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen,
Rotterdam

Terry Frost
Grey Figure
1957
oil on board
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Fernand Léger
Woman and Still Life
1921
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Francis Picabia
Figure Triste
1912
oil on canvas
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Pablo Picasso
Nude in a Rocking Chair
1956
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

John Singer Sargent
Drapery Study for Frieze of Prophets
ca. 1890-92
drawing
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Pavel Tchelitchew
Study of a Boy
ca. 1927
watercolor
Courtauld Gallery, London

Eric Thake
Figure in a Rocky Landscape
1965
linocut
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Jacques Villon
Figure
1921
oil on canvas
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York

Madeleine Vionnet
Evening Dress on Mannequin
1924
silk
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne

Svend Wiig Hansen
The Searchers
1958
engraving
Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen

Emerson Woelffer
Figure
1969
lithograph
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Anonymous Artist
Académie
19th century
drawing
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Against Portraits

How, beyond all foresight

or intention, light

plays with a face

whose features play with light:

frame on gilded frame,

ancestor on ancestor,

the gallery is filled

with more certainty than we can bear:

if there must be 

an art of portraiture,

let it show us ourselves as we

break from the image of what we are:

the animation of speech, and then

the eyes eluding

that which, once spoken,

seems too specific, too concluding:

or, entering a sudden slant

of brightness, between dark and gold,

a face half-hesitant,

face at a threshold:

– Charles Tomlinson (1972)

Riley - Shunsen - Sendak - Richter

Bridget Riley
Two Reds with Violet
2008
acrylic on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Bridget Riley
Measure of Measure 1
2016
acrylic on canvas
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Bridget Riley
R2016: Four-Colour Study with Black and White
1981
gouache on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Bridget Riley
Scale Study for Static
1966
gouache on paper
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Natori Shunsen
Ichikawa Sadanji II as Narukami in Narukami
1926
color woodblock print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Natori Shunsen
Jitsukawa Enjaku II
as Danshichi Kurobei in Summer Festival
1926
color woodblock print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Natori Shunsen
Matsumoto Koshiro VII
as Ikyu in Sukeroku: Flower of Edo
1929
color woodblock print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Natori Shunsen
Matsumoto Koshiro VII
as Umeomaru in Sugawara's Secrets
1926
color woodblock print
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Maurice Sendak
Ida
1977
etching, drypoint, aquatint and mezzotint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Maurice Sendak
Faithful Nutcracker
1984
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Maurice Sendak
Study for The Magic Flute
2002
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Maurice Sendak
Queen of the Night
2002
lithograph
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Gerhard Richter
Helga Matura
1966
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto

Gerhard Richter
Swiss Alps
1969
screenprint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Gerhard Richter
Abstract Painting (812)
1994
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Gerhard Richter
Juno
1983
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

from Ten Songs

Warm are the still and lucky miles,

White shores of longing stretch away,

A light of recognition fills

     The whole great day, and bright

The tiny world of lovers' arms.

Silence invades the breathing wood

Where drowsy limbs a treasure keep,

Now greenly falls the learned shade

     Across the sleeping brows

And stirs their secret to a smile.

Restored! Returned! The lost are borne

On seas of shipwreck home at last:

See! In a fire of praising burns

     the dry dumb past, and we 
Our life-day long shall part no more. 

– W.H. Auden (1939)

Painted Copper

Gonzales Coques
Portrait of a Man
ca. 1670
oil on copper
National Gallery, London

Karel van Mander the Elder
The World before the Flood
1600
oil on copper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Jan Brueghel the Elder
Wooded Landscape with Figures
ca. 1605-1610
oil on copper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Jan Willemsz Lapp
Italianate Landscape
ca. 1660
oil on copper
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Jan Willemsz Lapp
Italianate Landscape with Buildings
ca. 1660
oil on copper
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Monogrammist R.F.
Miniature Portrait of a Young Man
1606
oil on copper
Mauritshuis, The Hague

Adam Elsheimer
The Deluge
ca. 1600-1601
oil on copper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Joachim Wtewael
The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis
1612
oil on copper
Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts

attributed to Jacopo Zucchi
Holy Family
ca. 1576
oil on copper
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Jacques Stella
Holy Family
ca. 1650
oil on copper
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

attributed to Willem van Nieulandt the Younger
Temple of Minerva Medica in Rome
ca. 1610-15
oil on copper
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Caspar van Wittel
Basilica di Santa Maria della Salute, Venice
1706
oil on copper
Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Anonymous Flemish Artist
The Road to Emmaus
ca. 1600
oil on copper
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Paul Bril
Mountainous Landscape with St Jerome
1592
oil on copper
Mauritshuis, The Hague

workshop of Paul Bril
Landscape
ca. 1625
oil on copper
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Frans van Mieris
Portrait of botanist Florentius Schuyl
1666
oil on copper
Mauritshuis, The Hague

from A Word in Edgeways

Tell me about yourself they

say and you begin to

tell them about yourself and

that is just the way I

am is their reply: they play

it all back to you in another

key, their key, and then in mid-

narrative they pay you a 

compliment as if to say what a good

listener you are I am

a good listener my stay

here has developed my faculty I will

say that for me I will not

say that every literate male in 

America is a soliloquist, a

ventriloquist, a strategic 

egotist, an inveterate

campaigner-explainer over and

back again on the terrain of him-

self – what I will

say is they are not un-

interesting: they are simply

unreciprocal . . . 

– Charles Tomlinson (1969)

Made in 1965

John Graham Coughtry
Figure
1965
watercolor on paper
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

DeWain Valentine
Pink Top
1965
polyester resin and fiberglass
Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa, California

Philip Rich
Westknoll Series #5
1965
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Adolfo for Saks Fifth Avenue
Hat
1965
printed silk
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Gerhard Richter
Portrait Wachenfeld (104-3)
1965
oil on canvas
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Joe Goode
Self Portrait
1965
lithograph and screenprint
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Kelly Fearing
Five Small Owls and Setting Sun
1965
watercolor, oil pastel and silver leaf on panel
McNay Art Museum, San Antonio, Texas

Leonard Freed
Visitors to Herrenhausen Castle
1965
gelatin silver print
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Maxwell Bates
The Cocktail Party
1965
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia

William Kurelek
The Hound of Heaven
1965
lithograph
Museum London, Ontario

Kevin Lincoln
What Price Arbitration?
1965
linocut
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra

Jeffrey Smart
Garage Attendants, Rome
1965
drawing with added gouache
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide

Wolfgang Suschitzky
San Gimignano
1965
gelatin silver print
Kunstmuseum, The Hague

Hazel Janicki
The Drawer
1965
tempera on board
Akron Art Museum, Ohio

Wayne Lazorik
Stroll
1965
gelatin silver print
Art Institute of Chicago

Ernst Haas
Surtsey Volcano, Iceland
1965
dye transfer print
Portland Museum of Art, Maine

from Ten Songs

Say this city has ten million souls,

Some are living in mansions, some are living in holes:

Yet there's no place for us, my dear, yet there's no place for us.

Once we had a country and we thought it fair,

Look in the atlas and you'll find it there:

We cannot go there now, my dear, we cannot go there now.

In the village churchyard there grows an old yew,

Every spring it blossoms anew:
Old passports can't do that, my dear, old passports can't do that.

The consul banged the table and said:

"If you've got no pasport you're officially dead":

But we are still alive, my dear, but we are still alive.

Went to a committee; they offered me a chair;

Asked me politely to return next year:

But where shall we go to-day, my dear, but where shall we go to-day?

Came to a public meeting; the speaker got up and said:

"If we let them in, they will steal our daily bread";

He was talking of you and me, my dear, he was talking of you and me.

Thought I heard the thunder rumbling in the sky;

It was Hitler over Europe, saying: "They must die";

We were in his mind, my dear, we were in his mind.

Saw a poodle in a jacket fastened with a pin,

Saw a door opened and a cat let in:

But they weren't German Jews, my dear, but they weren't German Jews.

Went down to the harbour and stood upon the quay,

Saw the fish swimming as if they were free:

Only ten feet away, my dear, only ten feet away.

Walked through a wood, saw the birds in the trees;

They had no politicians and sang at their ease:

They weren't the human race, my dear, they weren't the human race.

Dreamed I saw a building with a thousand floors,

A thousand windows and a thousand doors;

Not one of them was ours, my dear, not one of them was ours.

Stood on a great plain in the falling snow;
Ten thousand soldiers marched to and fro:

Looking for you and me, my dear, looking for you and me.

– W.H. Auden (1939)