The Artist and His Mother

Art Annotations

	On-Line Art
Medium	Art
Art Form	Oil on canvas
Keywords	Mother-Son Relationship, Mourning, Time
Summary	Two figures confront the viewer: a seated woman and a standing boy. In this double portrait, both woman and boy face outward their positions static and almost hierarchical. The woman sits with her hands resting on her knees; the boy stands by her. The colors are muted, ocher, sepia, pink, grey. Although the pair do not look at each other, emotional connection is conveyed through the way their arms seems to touch.
Commentary	This painting is a fit companion for Roland Barthes's Camera Lucida; both painting and essay explore a son's rediscovery of his dead mother through a photograph. Gorky found the photograph of him and his mother on which the painting was based after her death. In reworking and reinterpreting the photograph of his childhood self with his then-living mother he invokes her memory.
Location of Original	National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Alternate Source	Jeremy Strick, Twentieth Century Painting and Sculpture (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1989); The Art of JAMA: Covers and Essays From the Journal of the American Medical Association. M. Therese Southgate (AMA Press) 1997
Miscellaneous	Painted and reworked 1926-1942.
Annotated by	Winkler, Mary G.
Date of Entry	10/30/98
Last Revised	12/19/01