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Dunstan’s self portrait is an uncompromising portrayal of a gentle-seeming man, perhaps somewhat guarded. The bespectacled gaze and lean features communicate determination, with shadowed eyes indicating a nervous tension. The picture is primarily made up of greys and muted flesh tones. The attenuated colour does not serve to bleach the picture of personality, but to make each ‘neutral grey element, warm or cold according to what was put around it’. Thus his forehead and left side of his face, catching the light, appear lucid, even though the skin is rendered low in tone. By contrast, the grey right side and chin appear extremely cool. Of the Slade, he said: ‘I acquired likings which have remained with me ever since… Rembrandt and Turner, Renoir and Sickert, Steer, Bonnard and Vuillard.
In 1949, he married the painter Diana Armfield. For a time, they lived and worked in a large studio room in London’s Belsize Park. In his small-scale paintings (of subjects such as a female nudes, musicians, and people in a café), Dunstan manages both to remain aloof and to be intimately absorbed in his subject matter.
Title
Self Portrait
Date
c.1962
Medium
oil on board
Measurements
H 28.5 x W 22.5 cm
Accession number
PCF29
Acquisition method
acquired by Ruth Borchard as part of the original collection
Work type
Painting
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