“Triple Self Portrait”

PERHAPS THE MOST INTERESTING ASPECT of this cleverly conceived self-portrait is the fact that the artist has chosen to give us a glimpse inside his head as well as multiple images of the face he shows the world. Pinned to his canvas are reproductions of paintings by four acknowledged masters. There are self-portraits by Dürer, Rembrandt and Van Gogh, and there is a post-cubist head by Picasso.

That Dürer and Rembrandt are sources of inspiration to Rockwell will come as a surprise to no one, but some people may be a little nonplussed to find the expressionistic work of Van Gogh and the still more radical vision of Picasso sharing space with these more academic masterpieces. The fact is that, despite the evidence of his work, Rockwell's taste is extremely catholic.

Photographs of Rockwell's home and studio show several modern works hanging on his walls, and, in 1923, as the result of a stay in Paris, he had a brief experimental period of his own during which he did very little commercial work. The fact that he abandoned this experimental approach does not mean that he lost interest in the idioms of the twentieth century. Rather he decided to return to what he did best, a happy decision for all of us, but the symbolic inclusion of Picasso's work in this self-portrait tells us that his curiosity about modern art remained very much alive.