[Self-Portrait]
Stanislaw Ignacy Witkiewicz Polish
Not on view
A prolific painter and photographer, dramatist and philosopher, Witkiewicz remains a legendary figure in Polish cultural history not only for his multifaceted talent but also for his bohemian lifestyle and eccentric personality. Throughout his life, he made hundreds of self-portraits-sketches, paintings, and photographs-characterized by a searing self-scrutiny and existential anguish. Taken with a view camera with its lens extended by a rain pipe, this image is characteristic of the searching photographic portraits he made between 1912 and 1914, a period culminating in the suicide of his fiancée. Witkiewicz himself took his own life on the eve of World War II.