Lesson #3
Museum Visit: Visiting Actual Works
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Objective
• To consider, compare, and contrast several examples or portraiture
and self-portraiture in MoMA’s collection with a focus on artists’ content
and style choices.

Prior to the lesson review various visual elements used to convey
identity (see lesson one).

Painting 1: Joseph Roulin, Vincent van Gogh
Rationale: to begin with a fairly traditional, representational example
of portraiture as something that students are familiar with.

Questions for discussion/activity:
What do we notice about this portrait? What choices has the artist
made about what to show us and what not to show us? What aspects
of the sitter’s identity can we learn about? Which can we make
inferences about? How?

Discuss what you can and cannot tell about the sitter through this
portrait – discuss how much about that is by artist’s choice and
how much is intrinsic to the nature of a self-portrait.

Let students know that this painting was either painted from memory
or from portraits of Roulin. Discuss that as a technique option:
a portrait can be created from life versus from memory versus
from an image.

Discuss importance of considering who your intended audience
is for a portrait/self-portrait. What background information might
your audience have to supplement the visual representation?
What extra information will they not have?

Transition: Share that we will be moving on to another artwork
that may challenge or expand our notion of self-portraiture.

Object 2: Red Studio, Henri Matisse

Rationale: To observe and discuss a self-portrait that does
not focus at all on the physical likeness of the artist, but
instead is an object-based and place-based self-representation.

Questions for discussion /activity:
Have the students describe the composition and discuss the
ways in which this painting could be viewed as a self-portrait.
If it is a self-portrait, what does it tell us about Matisse and how?
Why might an artist choose to represent himself in this way?

What do we notice about Matisse’s technique and style?
(Specifically, red color choice, and creating the contours
by reserving the under painting)

Transition: Now we will look at another artist’s work, this time
a portrait and think about how he approached a portrait
differently as compared to van Gogh and Matisse’s portraits.

Object 3: Girl before a Mirror, Pablo Picasso

Rationale: To consider an example of portraiture that is
more symbolic. Also, to consider how and why an artist
might subtly inflect a work with a self-portrait.

Questions for discussion /activity:
Start with a continuous line, blind contour drawing (3 minutes).
Explain how this exercise will help us to look carefully.
After drawing, ask students to share what the exercise helped
them to notice about the work.

How are the two depictions of the woman different?
How are they similar? Why would Picasso use the device of
the mirror to show us two views of this woman?
What might he be trying to share with us about the nature
of the woman’s identity? In what ways might we interpret
the differences in the image and its reflection to be symbolically
or metaphorically expressing the nature of her identity?

Share with the students that the woman is Marie-Terese and
that Picasso was in a relationship with her at the time that he
painted this image.

Discuss that there is potentially a hidden self-portrait in this painting.
Discuss the concept of an alter ego, and introduce the harlequin figure.
Where do you see an element of a harlequin/clown/jester’s costume
incorporated into this painting? Also, discuss the connection between
the colors of the Spanish flag, the background color scheme, and
Picasso’s Spanish heritage/identity.

Transition: Brice Marden’s For Helen, a more contemporary portrait
example that might really challenge expectations for portraiture.

Object 4: For Helen, Brice Marden

Rationale: To consider an example of portraiture that almost
entirely abstract and non-representational.

Questions for discussion /activity:
Share the title of the piece. Let students know that Helen is the
artist’s wife. How might this diptych be considered a portrait?
What aspects of Helen’s identity could this piece possibly express?

Conclusion: What are some of the style choices and content choices we encountered in the 3 (or 4) works that artists focused in on as ways to express an aspect of their sitters’ identities? How have our understandings of what a portrait or self-portrait expanded?