Study for Survivor, self-portrait

Burton Silverman has created many self-portraits over his lifetime as a painter of figures and landscapes. This sketch was made for a larger painting and was described by the artist as being “executed within a few years of my heart attack, in the aftermath of which I experienced a new sense of myself as a survivor. With this heightened awareness came a special need to strip to the waist in painting myself as if my essential selfhood was now more than just head and shoulders. This painting perhaps also ‘celebrates’ my survival, both as a human being and as an artist. The tools of my lifelong career are represented by the brushes in my right hand and the camera in the other.” The visual complexity of the portrait is enhanced with Silverman’s study of the reflections of trees and sky in the sliding glass door of his country studio.