F*CK U! In The Most Loving Way

Patricia Olson
Self-Portrait at 60 [after Beckmann]
Oil on panel
55 x 37 inches
2011
Self-Portrait at 60 is based on Max Beckmann’s Self-Portrait in Tuxedo. Beckmann paints a confident
but guarded presentation of the modern artist—at this time in history defined as exclusively male. This
painting transposes the gender of the artist, to project this male presentation of self and power via an
aging women’s body, at turns surprising, empowering, pathetic. Where Beckmann holds a cigarette,
this figure holds a tampon, symbolizing femaleness and, after menopause, the loss of fertility and
traditional female power.
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