Nathaniel Mary Quinn: Split Face

Building off of 20th-century greats Picasso and Bacon, Quinn freely interprets the human figure in a language at times grotesque and monstrous

Challenging the canon of beauty that dominated portraiture until the 19th century, the paintings of American artist Nathaniel Mary Quinn (born 1977) follow the path opened by 20th-century giants such as Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon, freely interpreting the human figure, composition and balance of forms through a nonacademic pictorial language. Often fractured and disquieting, Quinn's portraiture embraces the flawed dimensions of human character, extending a generosity to aesthetic qualities traditionally deemed deviant. Split Face presents a selection of Quinn's portraits alongside works by Renaissance and 20th-century masters of portraiture such as Donatello, Pollaiuolo, the Della Robbia family, Virgilio Guidi, Marino Marini, Antonietta Raphaël Mafai and many others. In doing so, the volume posits Quinn as a part of a long lineage of figurative trailblazers.