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John O'Reilly , (Feb 22, 1930–May 20, 2021)

Self Portrait with Rembrandt

5/29/1979
4 7/8 x 6 1/4 in.

Medium and Support: Paper and photograph montage

Credit Line: Museum purchase

Accession Number: 1979.26

Commentary

John O'Reilly (b. 1930) questions the position of the artist in contemporary society and the tradition of art-making through his appropriation of well-known images from the past. He deals with themes of representation and perception as seen throughout art history. By creating collages of photographs, which we unwittingly accept as true, he creates a new reality based on his imagination. In this photograph O'Reilly uses a technique derived from the surrealists, juxtaposing his own nude back against a monumental enlargement of Rembrandt's self-portrait to create this startling incongruity and visual pun. As a 1990 North Carolina Museum of Art exhibition catalogue states, "these collages are more than wry gambols through an art museum. Humor aside, the images seduce and confound the mind, possessing the enigma and visionary authority of dreams. And, like dreams, they order and reconcile conscious experience. The artist, who is a student of both art history and psychoanalysis, acknowledges that 'my own history and the history of art are brought together in these collages.' His art is truly theater of the self, performed in tableaux, each collage a miniature drama where time and space are upended, and where the dramatist, director, and often, lead actor, is John O'Reilly."
Sarah Vure

Exhibition List

This object was included in the following exhibitions:

Faculty Choice Show: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Photographs and Sculpture from Addison Gallery of American Art , 7/5/1988 - 7/31/1988
American Portraits: Colonial to Contemporary Addison Gallery of American Art , 4/21/1992 - 5/10/1992
Faces of the Addison: Portraits from the Collection Addison Gallery of American Art , 4/23/1994 - 7/31/1994
Secrets, Loss, Memory, and Courage: Works by Gay Male Artists Addison Gallery of American Art , 4/27/2013 - 7/31/2013
Past Is Prologue: History in Contemporary Art Addison Gallery of American Art , 4/16/2022 - 7/31/2022

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