Photo By Gail

In an effort to create an anonymous Self-Portrait (1923), artist Charles Sheeler (1883 – 1965) portrays himself as a barely perceptible, shadowy presents, reflected in a window left of center. Positioned in front of him is a telephone, a modern technology at the time, rendered with meticulous detail emphasizing its sleek, industrial design, which functions is a substitute or surrogate self.

“It was my aim to eliminate the evidence of painting as such and to present a design giving the least evidence of the means of accomplishment,” Sheeler offered. He originally titled this work Audubon 451, after his telephone exchange – a local number you would call to be connected to an operator at a switchboard. By choosing the telephone for a self-portrait, he might be making a statement about his identity as an artist in the modern age, where technology plays a significant role in communication and daily life.

Photographed in the Museum of Modern Art in New York City