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Preview image of work. oil on canvas,  Second Portrait with Max 11563

1998.1

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Second Portrait with Max

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Artist

Anne Harris (Cleveland, Ohio, 1961 - )

Title

Second Portrait with Max

Creation Date

ca. 1996-1997

Century

20th century

Dimensions

46 1/8 in. x 30 in. (117.16 cm. x 76.2 cm.)

Object Type

painting

Creation Place

North America, United States, Maine

Medium and Support

oil on canvas

Credit Line

Anonymous Gift and Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund

Copyright

This artwork may be under copyright. For further information, please consult the Museum’s Copyright Terms and Conditions.

Accession Number

1998.1

Unclothed and in the last term of her pregnancy, Harris uses her body as the vehicle to express the psychological undercurrents of a woman soon to be a mother for the first time. Taut over her large, swollen abdomen and containing corpulent thighs and breasts, the skin of Harris' body is translucent. The pellucid skin of her shoulders, arms, hands, and thighs recede into the background of the painting. Despite the traditional form of the three-quarter length portrait, the ambiguous boundaries between the subject and the background suggest that Harris' fertile physicality extends to the whole canvas. Her body becomes the painting. This ambiguity, created through formal means, combined with her lifeless appearance, suggests the self-sacrifice or suspension of self required to give birth.

Keywords: portraits