Creative Portraits Overview

In this workshop, we practice a method, 'Object Observation', by which art and artifacts can deepen students' historical understanding. Focusing on the genre of portraiture, we start by applying the method to Carl Van Vechten's photographic portraits of celebrities (Creative Americans: Portraits by Carl Van Vechten 1932-1964). Van Vechten's portraits present three decades of famous American literary figures, artists, and scholars. His effort to capture the personalities of his subjects provides us with an interesting glimpse of his own preoccupations as an artist, as well as those of the larger American culture at mid-century.

Following this workshop we break into groups and investigate other historical periods and themes using portraits from other American Memory collections. Finally, we practice 'curating' our own mini-exhibition of portraits, as students may do, to illustrate a theme or development.

Objectives

At the end of the workshop participants will be able to:

Demonstrate improved observation and questioning skills in regard to historical art and artifacts;
Formulate thoughtful questions about the relationship between the subject of a portrait, the artist, the historical climate, and the contemporary viewer.

Tasks in brief

Practice an "object observation" exercise and provide objective and subjective descriptions of a photographic portrait;
Determine the kinds of information that a portrait reveals and the "tools" of a portrait artist;
Search for portraits contained in several American Memory collections and articulate questions about the subject, the artist, and the historical period;
Reflect on the nature of portraiture;
Choose a small collection of portraits to tell a particular story.

Resources

NOTE: This workshop was developed by Sonnet Takahisa, Director of the New York City Museum School, New York, NY 10028.

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Last updated 09/26/2002