Wednesday, October 22, 2025

Less Than Forthright

Gillian Wearing
Trauma 1
2001
R-type print
NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, Florida


Howard Rackliffe
Self Portrait
ca. 1978
acrylic on paper
New Britain Museum of American Art, Connecticut

George Agnew Reid
Portrait of Mary Hiester Reid
ca. 1885
oil on canvas
Museum London, Ontario

Kiki Smith
Banshee Pearls
1991
lithograph
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Jim Smeal
Michael Milken
1990
C-print
(commissioned by Time magazine)
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

Larry Sultan
Portrait of My Father with Newspaper
1988
C-print
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC

Peter VandenBerge
Madame Matisse
1985
earthenware (partly glazed)
Smithsonian American Art Museum,
Washington DC

Jamie Wyeth
Lincoln Kirstein 1
1965
oil on canvas
National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC

attributed to François Quesnel
Portrait of Henri III, King of France
ca. 1580
oil on panel
Musée Carnavalet, Paris

Clifton Pugh
Portrait of John Perceval
1985
oil on canvas
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney

Moses Soyer
Julia Evergood
1962
oil on canvas
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York

Enrico Prampolini
Autoritratto Simultaneo
ca. 1923
oil on canvas
Guggenheim Museum, New York

Rodolphe Piguet
Portrait of a Woman
1876
oil on canvas
Musées d'Art et d'Histoire, Genève

Nicolas Régnier
Portrait of a Young Man
ca. 1645-50
oil on canvas
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Henry Varnum Poor
Self Portrait with Amaryllis
ca. 1950
oil on linen
Wichita Art Museum, Kansas

Frederick Sandys
May Margaret
1865-66
oil on canvas
Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

Sanford Roth
Portrait of painter Giorgio Morandi
ca. 1947
gelatin silver print
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

An Allusion to Martial 

As oft, Sir Tradewel, as we meet,
You're sure to ask me in the street,
When you shall send your Boy to me,
To fetch my Book of Poetry.
And promise you'l but read it o'er,
And faithfully the Loan restore:
But let me tell you as a Friend,
You need not take the pains to send:
'Tis a long way to where I dwell,
At farther end of Clarkenwel:
There in a garret near the Sky,
Above five pair of Stairs I lie.
But, if you'd have, what you pretend,
You may procure it nearer hand:
In Cornhil,where you often go,
Hard by th' Exchange, there is, you know,
A Shop of Rhime, where you may see
The Posts all clad in Poetry;
There Hindmarsh lives of high renown,
The noted'st TORY in the Town:
Where, if you please, enquire for me,
And he, or's Prentice, presently,
From the next Shelf will reach you down
The Piece well bound for half a Crown:
The Price is much too dear, you cry,
To give for both the Book, and me:
Yes doubtless, for such vanities,
We know, Sir, you are too too wise.

– Martial (AD 40-104), adapted and translated by John Oldham (1683)