Self Portrait in Red

Self Portrait in Red, painted in 1915 and held in the Zorn Collections at Mora, is one of the most striking of Zorn's numerous self-examinations. By 1915 he was fifty-five years old, his health beginning to decline, yet the red passages that give this portrait its title carry a chromatic boldness that seems to push against physical diminishment. Zorn painted himself throughout his career, and these self-portraits form a frank autobiographical record: youthful ambition in the 1889 Uffizi self-portrait, confident maturity in the 1890s, and in this late canvas a different, more complex presence. Red in portraiture typically signifies vitality, energy, and a certain defiance of conventional sobriety — Titian had used it, Rubens had used it — and Zorn's choice here suggests a deliberate assertion of painterly identity and physical presence. The Zorn Collections, which Zorn founded and populated himself, holds this and other self-portraits as cornerstones of the museum's identity.

Oil on canvas with a bold palette centred on warm reds and golden ochres, the dominant colour providing both visual drama and symbolic weight. Zorn's brushwork in the face is among his most direct: thick, decisive strokes model the features without softening, giving the self-portrait an almost sculptural bluntness.