William Beckman: Five Decades of Self Portraits

WILLIAM BECKMAN FIVE DECADES OF

SELF PORTRAITS September 23 – November 6, 2021 Essay by David Ebony

FORUM GALLERY 475 Park Avenue at 57th Steet, New York, NY 10022 (212) 355-4545

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William Beckman and the Art of Self-Reflection In the course of the development of Western art, the human face has become a place. A portrait is widely understood today as a repository of feeling, emotion, and passion. In a painting, drawing, or portrait bust, the face can be the locus of pride, triumph, vanity, or political power. Certain royal portraits of the Baroque Period, such as Diego Velázquez’s flawless paintings of Philip IV, for instance, served as stand-ins for the sovereign at various official functions and effectively conveyed his magisterial power by proxy. Sometimes in art the face is the site of great sadness, pain, and misery. Donatello’s life-size carved wood sculpture Mary Magdalene (1454-55) would be a potent example of just such an anguished countenance. In the present era of the “selfie,” with the deluge of images that has become part of contemporary mass culture, the face can operate as a mutable screen on which viewers project—for better or worse—their own values, presumptions, and meanings. In today’s digital world of CGI, it is even possible to convincingly project one’s own likeness onto the face of another. William Beckman directly addresses these technological advances and image-making innovations in S.P. w/I-P (2019), a stunning recent self-portrait showing the artist in a red-striped black racing jacket in the act of taking a “selfie.”

It is not a mere coincidence that Beckman is renowned for his paintings of places and faces.

Born and raised in rural Minnesota with formative years spent as a graduate student at the University of Iowa, the heartland of the nation—America’s Midwest—is engrained in his psyche as well as his artistic vision. In his landscapes, towering grain elevators soar above long stretches of farmland with an imposing dynamic tenacity not unlike that of the ancient pyramids. Beckman’s portraits are intimate and personal yet they exude a similar sense of monumentality, and, perhaps, a bid for immortality.

They are of friends and family, keenly observed studies of stoic and steadfast individuals that have held, or still hold, sway over his life on a frequent if not daily basis. The artist, who resided for some years in New York City, now lives and works in rural upstate New York, but still culls from the Midwest environment of his youth—farms, cows, and ordinary folks—for imagery and inspiration. In his recent and marvelous large-scale composition, Overcoat with Plowed Field (2018-2021), Beckman depicts himself as he looks today, with gray hair and an indeterminate number of wrinkles on his face, standing in a furrowed farm field of rich, brown soil, with a silvery grain elevator visible in the far distance—a reoccurring setting in his work that he recalls from his youth.

He memorialized his parents in nearly life-size portrayals; and certain fortunate friends have been lionized by Beckman’s painterly prowess. Outstanding among them, for me, are several portraits of his close friend, the late artist Gregory Gillespie, with whom Beckman shared an aptitude for meticulous craftsmanship as well as an aspiration to advance figurative painting toward a new world of unforeseen possibility.

Self-portraits constitute a special realm, and occupy a rather exalted station in art history, as they do in Beckman’s oeuvre.

The present exhibition, the first to focus exclusively on Beckman’s inimitable self-portraits, covers some five decades. His own face and body are convenient subjects when other models become scarce, of course, and Beckman has thus recorded through the years the process of his aging. He has sustained, however, a consistent and calm iconography, and a subtly nuanced approach to selfreflection. I often advise the students who attend my graduate seminar at the New York Academy of Art that there is no time for self-consciousness; and you can’t afford to be self-deprecating; but one’s

duty as an artist is to be self-reflective. If the job of the artist, then, is to illuminate his or her moment in time, and to communicate for future generations the experience of being alive today, then Beckman’s example is one that should be followed.

As with most of his portraits and figure studies, Beckman does not work from photographs, although his precisionist paintings and works on paper seem to be related to photorealism. He sometimes works from the model, and occasionally makes related drawings, such as the two outstanding examples in this show—Self-Portrait #1 (glasses), 1983; and Self-Portrait with Black Sweater (1997). Most often, though, he works from memory in all of his portraits, including his selfportraits. Aside from an occasional peek into the antique mirror hung in his studio, his self-images are constructed entirely from memory. How does he accomplish such convincing verisimilitude without the help of photography? During a recent studio visit, he told me that “Although the aging process is evident from work to work, the facial structure and features are still there—the eyes ears, and nose—are all quite the same. It all comes about through practice.”1 British art historian James Hall writes in his book The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History, “Conventional wisdom has it that around AD 1500 individualism was born, and good quality crystal glass mirrors invented, thereby allowing people to see themselves clearly for the first time. From this perfect cultural storm came the irresistible rise of self-portraiture.”2 Self-portraits by a range of artists, from Rembrandt to Vincent van Gogh and Lucien Freud, have inspired Beckman over the years; but having mastered the technique of the Renaissance painters—creating oil-on-panel compositions with countless layers of pigment, glazing, and extremely labor-intensive detail—Beckman’s works are stylistically closer to Jan van Eyck and Hans Holbein.

That is not to say that Beckman is not attuned to the tenets of modernism and the avant-garde styles of his generation. He directly addressed the Minimalist aesthetic in his early series of “Boxes,” relief paintings with figures ensconced in illusionistic spaces.3 While Beckman’s special brand of figuration defies the strategies of reductive abstraction that define Minimalism, the cool, reserved demeanor

Self-Portrait, 1974 oil on panel 72 x 48 inches

of his images, and the consistently austere tone of his compositions correspond to the Minimalist ethos. And Beckman’s self-portraits always convey a Zenlike stoicism and reserve. In an early Self-Portrait from 1974, for example, a full length, nearly life-size figure stands in an interior space with bare feet, rugged-looking jeans, and bare torso, arms crossed. He stares straight out at the viewer. Raking light beams from a window on the right traverse the lower portion of the composition in graceful diagonals. In the distance, at left, portions of other rooms are visible, allowing the viewer some respite from the imposing figure’s resolute gaze. In another standing Self-Portrait, from 1982, Beckman establishes a far more confrontational relationship with the viewer. He appears in a threequarter-length pose, in a plaid shirt, and with hands folded in front and tucked just below the belt of his

jeans. In this work, there is no relief for the viewer who becomes visually enmeshed in the same space as the artist. He thereby engages the viewer in an uncompromising tête-à-tête.

In this manner of visually interacting with the viewer, Beckman always maintains his own space, his own distance from the audience. There is an inevitable confrontation, but the artist always remains apart. “I establish a ‘barrier’ between myself and whoever is viewing it,” the artist told me. “There is a certain defiance, and it all comes from wanting to keep my space apart from anyone else’s space,” he adds. “I am a loner, and I have always been that way. It’s not that I don’t like people, but I prefer to be by myself. I prefer total silence. I don’t listen to any music or audio books while I work. It’s never total silence, though, because there is always nature, and I always have the windows open. I can identify the sounds of practically every animal that lives around here.”

Beckman, though, is an artist who expresses “aloneness” in universal terms. In his work, he presents himself as a likeable enough protagonist, but without being manipulative or eliciting specific emotional responses from viewers. Each of his selfportraits may be considered as a meditative image, an imaginative contemplation of the passage of time, identity, and mortality. In addition, his self-images are steeped in art-historical allusions. Self-Portrait with Hat (1979-80), for instance, calls to mind not only van Gogh’s well-known self-images wearing straw hats, but also makes me think of Chardin’s wonderful Self-Portrait with Visor (c. 1776), both wear similar-looking eyeglasses. Beckman often conveys a kinship with artist predecessors like Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528). Dürer was the most illustrious and prolific painter of self-portraits in the Renaissance, and his work has been a consistent source of inspiration for Beckman. An early Self-Portrait (1976), tightly focused on the head, appears to be a direct homage to Dürer’s famous Self-Portrait (1500), showing the artist with sensuous strands of curled hair cascading from either side of his head. Beckman’s painting, however, is not an exercise in nostalgia, and is clearly a work of contemporary art. The red lumberjack plaid shirt signals the present, or recent past, while every strand of hair—in the curly blond locks and reddish beard that frame his face—is meticulously and lovingly rendered in a way that echoes Dürer’s efforts. And like Dürer’s, Beckman’s shining eyes connect directly with every viewer—now and probably through the ages. Beckman’s endeavor to imagine and reimagine himself, year after year, decade after decade, in self-portraiture, is for him an obsessive and fulfilling exercise in self-reflection that has sustained him through the years. Based on a recently completed work, Self-Portrait (2021), with a gray-blue background highlighting his white hair and lively blue eyes, the field of self-portraiture promises to be for Beckman, at 79, an ever more fruitful terrain in his upcoming octogenarian epoch.

— David Ebony David Ebony is a contributor editor of Art in America, and formally the magazine’s managing editor. He is the author of “David Ebony + Art Books,” a bimonthly column for Yale University Press online, and well as numerous artists’ monographs. He lives and works in New York City.

Self-Portrait, 1982 oil on panel 50 x 36 1/2 inches

1 A ll quotes by William Beckman are from the author’s visit to the Artist’s studio in Wassaic, New York, July 16, 2021.

2 Hall, James. The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History, Thames & Hudson, London and New York, 2015, p. 8.

3 Belz, Carl. William Beckman, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, 2002, p. 13.

TEXT © 2021 DAVID EBONY

Self-Portrait, 1976 oil on panel 11 1/8 x 9 1/4 inches

Self-Portrait with Hat, 1979–1980 oil on panel 21 1/8 x 16 3/4 inches Private Collection, New York

Self-Portrait, 1980 oil on panel 15 1/4 x 13 1/4 inches Private Collection

Self-Portrait with Black Sweater, 1997 charcoal on paper 29 x 24 3/4 inches (opposite)

Self-Portrait #1 (glasses), 1983 charcoal on paper 42 1/2 x 33 1/2 inches

Self-Portrait, 1998 oil on panel 14 1/4 x 12 inches Collection of Rob and Marcie Orley, Franklin, MI

Self-Portrait (orange shirt), 2003 oil on panel 18 1/2 x 16 1/4 inches Collection of J.S. Cole, Lake Forest, IL

Black on White Self-Portrait (Ducati Cap), 2004 oil on panel 38 1/2 x 49 1/4 inches Collection of Rob and Marcie Orley, Franklin, MI

Blue on Blue Self-Portrait, 2006 oil on panel 18 1/8 x 15 1/2 inches Private Collection

Self-Portrait with Farmall Cap, 2009–2015 oil on panel 34 1/2 x 49 1/4 inches

Overcoat with Plowed Field, 2018–2021 oil on canvas 100 x 73 inches

S.P. w/ I-P, 2019 oil on panel 23 3/4 x 19 1/2 inches

Self-Portrait Red on Blue, 2020 oil on panel 21 1/8 x 16 1/4 inches

S.P. with Yellow T, 2021 oil on panel 15 1/2 x 12 1/2 inches

WILLIAM BECKMAN born: Maynard, MN, 1942 education: 1966, BA, St. Cloud State University, MN

1968, MA and MFA, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA

one-person exhibitions 2021 William Beckman: Five Decades of Self-Portraits, Forum Gallery,

New York, NY (catalogue) 2020 William Beckman: New Works by an American Master, Forum

Gallery, New York, NY (online exhibition) 2017 William Beckman: New Paintings and Drawings, Forum Gallery,

New York, NY (catalogue) 2014–15 William Beckman: Drawings: 1967–2013, curated by Charles T.

Butler, Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA; traveled to Arkansas

Art Center, Little Rock, AR (catalogue) 2014 William Beckman: Recent Paintings and Drawings, Forum

Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue)

William Beckman: The Bull Series, Forum Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue) 2007 William Beckman, Forum Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue

with essay by Donald Kuspit) 2003 William Beckman: Paintings and Drawings, Forum Gallery,

New York, NY 2002 Painting on the Edge: The Art of William Beckman, curated by Carl

Belz, Frye Art, Museum, Seattle, WA (catalogue) 2001-2 William Beckman: Paintings, Forum Gallery, New York, NY and

Los Angeles, CA (catalogue) 1999 Figure Drawing, Huntington Museum of Art, WV 1997 Forum Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue) 1996 William Beckman: Couple Paintings: 70s, 80s, 90s, K&E Gallery,

New York, NY 1994 Forum Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue with essay by Carl Belz) 1992 Dossier of a Classical Woman, curated by Penelope Hunter-Steibel

Stiebel, Modern, New York, NY; Indiana University Art Museum,

Bloomington, IN (catalogue) 1989 Allan Frumkin, New York, NY 1988 Allan Frumkin, New York, NY 1986 Allan Frumkin, New York, NY (catalogue with essay by Carl Belz) 1985 Allan Frumkin, New York, NY 1982 Allan Frumkin, New York, NY (catalogue with essay by John Arthur) 1980 Allan Stone, New York, NY 1978 Allan Stone, New York, NY 1976 Allan Stone, New York, NY 1974 Allan Stone, New York, NY 1971 Allan Stone, New York, NY 1970 Allan Stone, New York, NY 1969 Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY

selected group exhibitions 2021 Drawing inspiration, Forum Gallery, New York, NY

That Eighties Show, Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2020 In Person: William Beckman | Alan Magee | Alyssa Monks,

Forum Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue)

First Impressions: New Works and New Acquisitions,

Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2019 Person to Person, Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2018–19 Eye to I: Self-Portraits from 1900 to Today, National Portrait

Gallery, Washington, DC

Wild Kingdom, Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, NY 2018 30 Years: Frumkin/Adams, George Adams Gallery, New York, NY

There’s Still Life!, Forum Gallery, New York, NY

Artists by Artists: The Artist as Subject, Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2017 Forum Gallery Celebrates 55 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art, Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2016–17 Contemporary Old Masters, Louisiana Art & Science Museum,

Baton Rouge, LA

20/21–Visionary Artists of the 21st Century, Forum Gallery, New York, NY

I Can See For Miles, Allan Stone Projects, New York, NY 2015 The Annual 2015: The Depth of the Surface, The National

Academy Museum, New York, NY 2014 Wives, Daughters and Lovers, Forum Gallery, New York, NY

46th Collector’s Show and Sale, Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, AR 2013 Face to Face: Artist Self-Portraits from the Collection of Jackye and

Curtis Finch Jr., Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock, AR (catalogue)

2012 Five Decades: Art and Artists of Forum Gallery 1962–2012,

Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2011 That Seventies Show, Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2010 Capital Portraits: Treasures from Washington Private Collections, 1730–2010, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC (catalogue)

Narcissus in the Studio: Artist Portraits and Self-Portraits, curated

by Robert Cozzolino, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts,

Philadelphia, PA (catalogue) 2008 The Figure Revealed: Contemporary American Figurative Paintings

and Drawings, Kalamazoo Institute of Art, Kalamazoo, MI 2007 The Contemporary Landscape, Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2006–07 Portraiture Now: Series 1, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian

Institution, Washington, DC (inaugural exhibition at new facility) (catalogue)

New Old Masters/ Nowi Dawni Mistrzowie, curated by Donald

Kuspit, National Museum, Gdansk, Poland (catalogue) 2006 Eye to Eye, curated by Luanne E. McKinnon, Cornell Fine Arts

Museum, Winter Park, FL (catalogue) 2005–06 New Old Masters, curated by Barbara Krulik, Naples Art Museum,

Naples, FL (catalogue) 2005 Disegno: The 180th Annual Exhibition, National Academy of

Design, New York, NY

Figurative Impulse, Forum Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 2004 Contemporary Landscapes, Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2003 Modern and Contemporary Portraits, curated by Townsend

Wolfe, Forum Gallery, New York, NY 2002 Representations: The Art of Drawing, Schick Art Gallery,

Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY

A Decade of American Contemporary Figurative Drawing,

Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA 2001 Identities: Contemporary Portraiture, New Jersey Center for

Visual Arts, Summit, NJ

Magic Vision, curated by Townsend Wolfe, Arkansas Arts Center,

Little Rock, AR (catalogue) 2000 Collecting Ideas: Works from the Mark and Polly Addison Collection, Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO 1999 Contemporary American Realist Drawings, The Jalane and

Richard Davidson Collection, curated by Ruth Fine, The Art

Institute of Chicago, IL (catalogue)

Drawn Across the Century: Highlights from the Dillard Collection

of Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North

Carolina, Greensboro, NC

Walter Gropius Masters Workshop Series, Huntington

Museum of Art, Huntington, WV

Green Woods and Crystal Waters: The American Landscape Tradition, The Philbrook Museum of Art, Tulsa, OK

The Nude in Contemporary Art, The Aldrich Museum of

Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT 1998 The Figurative Impulse, Miami Dade Community College,

Kendall Campus Art Gallery, Miami, FL

Drawing the Figure: Kent Bellows and William Beckman, Forum

Gallery, New York, NY (catalogue with essay by Townsend Wolfe) 1997 Derriere Guard Festival, The Kitchen, New York, NY

172nd Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design,

New York, NY 1996 Paint Counterpaint: Portraits of and by William Beckman and

Gregory Gillespie, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar

College, Poughkeepsie, NY 1995 The Body Human, Nohra Haime Gallery, NY

Re-Presenting Representation II, Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY

The Herbert W. Plimpton Collection of Realist Art, 18th Annual

Patrons and Friends Exhibition, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA 1994 169th Annual Exhibition, National Academy of Design,

New York, NY

20th Century Figurative Drawings and Paintings, Forum Gallery,

New York, NY

Aspects of Realism, Laura Craig Galleries, Scranton, PA

Faces of the Addison: Portraits from the Collection, Addison

Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA 1993 Artists by Artists, Forum Gallery, New York, NY

Drawings on the Figure, curated by Stanley I. Grand, Carlsten

Art Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, WI (catalogue)

45th Annual Purchase Exhibition American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York, NY

Drawing on the Figure, curated by Stanley I. Grand, Carsten

Art Gallery, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Stevens Point,

WI (catalogue) 1991 American Realism & Figurative Art, 1952-1990, curated by John

Arthur. Traveled to: Miyagi Museum of Art, Sendai, Miyagi,

Japan; Sogo Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan; The

Tokushima Modern Art Museum, Tokushima, Japan; The

Museum of Modern Art, Shiga, Japan; Kochi Prefectural

Museum of Folk Art, Japan (catalogue)

In Human Terms, curated by Katherine Chapin, Steibel Modern,

New York, NY (catalogue) 1990 The Figure, curated by Townsend Wolfe, Arkansas Art Center,

Little Rock, AR (catalogue) 1987 Ten at The Rose, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University,

Waltham, MA (catalogue) 1986 An American Renaissance, curated by Sam Hunter, Ft. Lauder-

dale Museum of Art, FL (catalogue)

American Realism: Twentieth-Century Drawings and Watercolors

from the Collection of Glenn Janss, San Francisco Museum of

Modern Art, CA. Traveled to: DeCordova and Dana Museum,

Lincoln, MA; Huntington Art Gallery, University of Texas,

Austin, TX; Block Gallery, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL;

Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA; Akron Art

Museum, OH; Madison Art Center, WI (catalogue) 1985 Drawings Acquisitions, 1981-1985, Whitney Museum of

American Art, New York, NY

American Realism: The Precise Image, curated by John Arthur

(catalogue), Traveled to: Isetan Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan:

Diamaru Museum, Osaka, Japan; Yokohama Takashimaya, Japan 1984 The Art of William Beckman and Gregory Gillespie, curated by Carl

Belz, Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA;

traveled to La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, CA (catalogue) 1983 American Super-Realism from the Morton S. Neuman Family Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Evanston, IL (catalogue) 1982 Focus on the Figure, curated by Barbara Haskell, Whitney

Museum of American Art, New York, NY (catalogue)

Perspectives on Contemporary American Realism: Works on Paper

from the Collection of Jalane and Richard Davidson, The Art

Institute of Chicago, IL; traveled to Pennsylvania Academy of the

Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA (catalogue) 1981 Directions 1981, curated by Miranda McClintic, Hirshhorn

Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC (catalogue)

Americkansche Malerei, curated by Thomas Armstrong, Haus

der Kunst, Munich, Germany

Inside Out: Self Beyond Likeness, Newport Harbor Art Museum,

Newport Beach, CA. Traveled to: Portland Art Museum, Portland,

OR; Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, NE

Contemporary American Realism Since 1960, curated by Frank

Goodyear, Pennsylavania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia,

PA. Traveled to: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA;

The Oakland Museum, CA; Gulbenkean Museum, Lisbon,

Portugal; Kunsthalle, Nuremberg, Germany (catalogue) 1975 Modern Portraits: The Self and Others, curated by Kirk

Varnedoe, Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY (catalogue)

American Portrait Drawings, curated by Marvin Sadik, National

Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC (catalogue) 1974 Seventy-First American Exhibition, curated by James Speyer,

The Art Institute of Chicago, IL (catalogue)

Aspects of the Figure, curated by Edward Henning, The

Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (catalogue)

Art Conceptuel et Hyperrealiste: Collection Ludwig, Musee d’Art

Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France; traveled to Neue Gallerie,

Aix-la-Chapelle, France (catalogue) 1968 Seven Young Talents from Iowa, Richard Feigen Gallery, Chicago, IL

selected articles/reviews 2017 “William Beckman: New Paintings and Drawings,” NYC Arts, 10/5/17.

2015 Hagler, Elana. “William Beckman,” American Arts Quarterly,

Winter 2015, Volume 32, Number 1.

2014 Johnson, Ken. “Art in Review: William Beckman,” The New

York Times, 3/28/14.

Wertz, Orion. “William Beckman: Contours in Columbus,”

Burnaway, 6/9/14.

Parks, John A. “William Beckman: Confronting the World,”

The Drawing Magazine, Summer 2014.

2012 Dubrow, Norman. “Great Contemporary Pastels in American Museums,” Fine Art Connoisseur, 5–6/12.

2008 Leffingwell, Edward. “William Beckman at Forum,” Art in America, 3/08.

2007 Johnson, Ken. “William Beckman,” The New York Times, 11/16/07.

Goodrich, John. “Rendering Reality” The New York Sun, 10/24/07.

2005 Kinsella, Eileen. “The Paper Chase,” ARTnews, 1/06.

2004 Mullarkey, Maureen. “Gallery-Going,” The New York Sun, 8/26/04.

Valdez, Sara. “William Beckman at Forum,” Art in America, 2/04.

2003 Hackett, Regina. “William Beckman at Seattle Art Museum,”

ARTnews, 3/03.

Johnson, Ken. “William Beckman at Forum,” The New York Times, 5/2/03.

1994 Grimes, Nancy. “William Beckman at Forum,” Art In America, 9/94.

“William Beckman,” The New Art Examiner, 10/94.

1989 Belz, Carl. “A Conditional Paradise,” Art in America, 1/89.

Larson, Kay. “Peaceable Kingdom,” New York, 4/28/86.

Cooper, James F. “American Realism shows to Good

Advantage In Comparing Beckman to Katz’s Modernism,”

The New York Times, 4/4/86.

Brenson, Michael. “Of Interest this Week,” The New York Times, 4/4/86.

Birmelin, Blair T. “William Beckman at Frumkin,” Art In America, 11/86.

1982 Arthur, John, “William Beckman,” American Artist, 11/82.

awards and alliances 1999 National Academy of Design: The Thomas R. Proctor Prize 1995 American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award 1990 American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award 1987 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award 1985 American Academy of Arts and Letters Purchase Award 1969 Figurative Alliance

public collections Addison Gallery of American Art, Phillips Academy, Andover, MA Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Little Rock, AR The Art Institute of Chicago, IL Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA The Columbus Museum, Columbus, GA Des Moines Art Center, IA Flint Institute of Arts, MI Frye Art Museum, Seattle, WA Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York, NY Milwaukee Art Museum, WI Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN Museum Moderne Kunst, Vienna, Austria - former collection of Peter Ludwig National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC New Britain Museum of American Art, CT Pasadena Art Museum, CA Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, MA Seven Bridges Foundation, CT Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC Springfield Art Museum, MO University of Iowa, IA University of North Carolina, NC Weatherspoon Art Gallery, Greensboro, NC Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT

Self-Portrait, 2021 oil on panel 15 1/2 x 12 5/8 inches

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