John Ashbery is a 1975 portrait of John Ashbery by Elaine de Kooning. The painting is located at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, New York. De Kooning also made a lithograph print portrait of Ashbery in 1984 that is also under ownership of the Memorial Art Gallery. Both portraits have been included in exhibitions showcasing work related to John Ashbery's poetry collection, "Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror".
The portrait depicts John Ashbery sitting with his arms crossed and his eyes focused on the viewer.[1] The painting has been compared in style to portraits by Alice Neel in the synthesis of paint and image.[2]
Background
Elaine de Kooning painted many portraits of her friends and celebrities in her career.[3] Elaine and her husband Willem de Kooning were associated with many artists and poets in the New York art scene called the "New York School".[4] Other artists who were also associated or grouped in with the New York School scene include John Ashbery, Frank O'Hera and others.[5] Willem was acquainted with Ashbery just as his wife was, with Ashbery referencing Willem in a 1957 poetry review.[6] The painting was painted not long after John Ashbery published his critically acclaimed poetry collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror in 1974.[7] The publication of "Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror" was a major milestone in John Ashbery's poetry career, with the collection winning him the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award all in one year, which was a major accomplishment because no writer had won all three of those awards in one year before.[8]
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