Portrait of a Man in a Cap
Joseph Stella
American, 1877–1946
c. 1900, printed 1960
An intimate etching on paper in which Stella concentrates on rendering the sitter’s character—an older man in a cap—using spare, incisive marks to convey presence and age.
A small, square gray image sits in a wide white field, and what strikes you is how a weathered face and cap seem to emerge from soft, uneven tones and vivid, biting lines so that the man’s direct, slightly weary gaze feels immediate and alive.
This early print shows Stella’s mastery of etching and his debt to expressive portrait traditions, acting as a bridge between 19th‑century realist printmaking and the more experimental modernist language he would later pursue.
Medium
Etching
Dimensions
plate: 5 1/8 x 5 11/16" (13 x 14.5 cm); sheet: 11 x 14 15/16" (28 x 37.9 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Bernard Rabin and Nathan Krueger
Accession
49.1961
Palette
Exhibitions
