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Self-Portrait by Mose Tolliver / American Art
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Self-Portrait

1985 Mose Tolliver Born: Pike Road, Alabama 1919 Died: Montgomery, Alabama 2006 oil on fiberboard with human hair 24 1/2 x 16 7/8 in. (62.2 x 42.9 cm.) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr. and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson 1986.65.142 Smithsonian American Art Museum
3rd Floor, Luce Foundation Center



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Self-Portrait
from American Art staff



Mose Tolliver was able to stand only with the aid of crutches after a factory accident injured his legs in the late 1960s. He then began to paint, and the exaggerated legs and crutches in this self-portrait emphasize his physical disabilities. Tolliver often used unconventional materials in his paintings and here included pieces of his own hair around the head and upper lip.

For more information about this work visit the Luce Foundation Center.


Keywords

Ethnic - African-American

Portrait male - Tolliver, Mose - self-portrait

painting

folk art

animal parts - hair

paint - oil

fiberboard

About Mose Tolliver

Born: Pike Road, Alabama 1919 Died: Montgomery, Alabama 2006

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Mose Tolliver

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