Self-Portraits and Portraiture

In Post-Revolutionary Mexico, the diversity of life was reflected in portraiture and self-portraits. This often played out in the social divisions between the bourgeoisie who were portrayed as decadent and the popular masses who were shown as resolute and powerful. Towards the middle of the century, this view became more nuanced. Manuel Rodriguez Lozano painted this stark self-portrait in 1940 when he was named director of the School of Plastic Arts of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). A deeply psychological depiction, it shows Lozano as a worldly intellectual and quotes artistic elements from Renaissance and Dutch painting, as well as his own work and German art from between the two world wars.