Object Details
Artist
Peter Hujar, 1934 - 1987
Sitter
John Ashbery, 28 Jul 1927 - 3 Sep 2017
Exhibition Label
Born Rochester, New York
John Ashbery posed for this portrait in 1975, the year he published Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, a volume of poetry that went on to claim a trio of prestigious literary awards: the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the National Book Award. In the title poem for Self-Portrait, Ashbery offers a long meditation on the act of taking a likeness and on the fragile relationship between the individual and the work of art: “What is beautiful seems so only in relation to a specific / Life, experienced or not, channeled into some form / Steeped in the nostalgia of a collective past.” Over the course of his career, this was his artistic credo, as he sought to vocalize experience through his own ecstatic, long lines of verse. Ashbery, one of America’s most important poets and an heir to Walt Whitman (1819–1892), published more than twenty books of poetry between 1956 and 2015.
Credit Line
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; acquired through the generosity of Elizabeth Ann Hylton
Date
1975
Object number
NPG.2006.81
Restrictions & Rights
Usage conditions apply
Copyright
© The Peter Hujar Archive, LLC
Type
Photograph
Medium
Gelatin silver print
Dimensions
Image: 37.3 x 37.5cm (14 11/16 x 14 3/4")
Sheet: 50.5 x 40.4cm (19 7/8 x 15 7/8")
Mat: 71.1 x 55.9cm (28 x 22")
See more items in
National Portrait Gallery Collection
Location
Currently not on view
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Topic
Interior
Personal Attribute\Facial Hair\Mustache
John Ashbery: Male
John Ashbery: Arts and Culture\Literature\Writer\Poet
John Ashbery: Arts and Culture\Visual Arts\Art critic
John Ashbery: Arts and Culture\Literature\Writer\Playwright
John Ashbery: Literary awards\Pulitzer Prize
Portrait
Link to Original Record
Record ID
npg_NPG.2006.81