Collection

Rashid Johnson, Self-Portrait with my hair parted like Frederick Douglass, 2003

Images of Rashid Johnson, Self-Portrait with my hair parted like Frederick Douglass

Color photograph portrait of a man with dreadlocks wearing a dark suit against a black background
Rashid Johnson, American, b. 1977
Self-Portrait with my hair parted like Frederick Douglass, 2003
Lambda print mounted on Sintra
45 3/16 × 57 1/4 × 1 1/4 in. (114.8 × 145.4 × 3.8 cm)
Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Gift of the Susan and Lewis Manilow Collection of Chicago Artists, 2006.26
Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago
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  • This black and white vertical portrait portrays a dark-skinned person with two faces, one looking left and the other looking right, with palm-like fronds surrounding the figure.
    On view
    Rashid Johnson, The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club (Marcus), 2010
    1. Long The masculine person, shown from the torso up, is wearing a vertically striped button-down shirt, a herringbone vest, and a dark tie. The subject takes up the majority of the image, with their shoulders extending to either of the vertical edges. The two superimposed faces, slightly overlapping, have a similarly stoic expression. Both of the faces have heavy, dark eyebrows, a wide rounded nose, a closed, expressionless mouth, and are crowned by a dark, curly afro hair style. The upper left and bottom corners all appear lighter in tone, as if overexposed. Surrounding the figure are lush, palm-like plant fronds, both in the background and foreground. Some of the fronds obscure the person's shoulders on both sides of the image.