- Title
- Portrait of Valentiner I
- Date Made
- 1923
- Medium
- woodcut
- Dimensions
- Image: 19 9/16 x 15 1/2 in. (49.69 x 39.37 cm); Sheet: 24 13/16 x 15 1/2 in. (63.02 x 39.37 cm)
- Accession Number
- M.82.287.60
- Collecting Area
- Robert Gore Rifkind Center for German Expressionist Studies
- Curatorial Notes
The German-born art historian Wilhelm Valentiner was a major influence on art museums in the United States. He worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, founded the journal Art in America, and was director of the Detroit Institute of the Arts. In 1945 he was appointed consulting director for the art collection at LACMA’s precursor, the Los Angeles Museum of History, Science, and Art. Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, about whom Valentiner wrote a monograph, portrays him with asymmetrical eyes, a trait the artist also applied to depictions of Christ. The gaze suggests one with a strong inner vision who also keeps watch on the world around him.
Exhibition Label: The Expressive Gaze: Portraits and Self-Portraits, 2022, Erin Maynes
- Selected Bibliography
- Muchnic, Suzanne. LACMA So Far: Portrait of a Museum in the Making. San Marino, California: Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, 2015.
