Barry Moser: Portraits

“The portrait is, in my way of thinking, akin to a crystal goblet, I merely shape it and offer it to you. You fill it….
−Barry Moser, from the Afterword to One Hundred Portraits.

Portraits have been a staple of Barry Moser’s work since his first book, The Red Rag, was published in 1970. Four years later Moser published Twelve American Writers, a collection of portraits and literary bons mots by twelve American writers beginning with James Fennimore Cooper and ending with William Faulkner. In 1999 Moser published his magnum opus, The Pennyroyal Caxton Bible, in which the majority of the 232 images were portraits.

For this present collection Moser reprinted many of his engraved portraits, some for the second or third time, and engraved twenty-five new ones for the now sold out portfolio, PORTRAITS. A new selection of engravings were created for the trade edition of Barry’s recent book, One Hundred Portraits. Barry Moser chose “artists, writers composers, poets (and one theologian) who were and are mentors, friends and people with whom I have worked, whom I have photographed, and with whom I enjoy a correspondence.”

Read Ann Patchet’s introduction to One Hundred Potraits here.

Pen and Ink

Self-Portraits

Bronze: