Self-Portrait Facing Left (Selbstbildnis nachlinks) 1920

This is a self-portrait facing left, made by Otto Mueller, using I think woodcut or linocut. It's all in black and white, with these really assertive marks that carve out his face from the block. I can just imagine Mueller working away at that block, thinking, "How can I get this to look like me?" Each gouge and slice probably felt like a tiny decision, a small revelation about his own features. I wonder what he was feeling when he made it? Was he happy? Frustrated? The darks around the face makes you really focus on the gaze, it's quite something! There's this great tradition of artists doing self-portraits, right? It's like they're holding up a mirror to themselves, and to the world. Looking at this, I'm reminded of other German Expressionists like Kirchner or Heckel. They were all wrestling with similar ideas about identity and how to represent it in new ways. In this print, the surface has so much to say. It's rough, immediate, there's no room for messing about! It feels so urgent! It’s all just one big conversation between artists across time.