Edith Neff, Self-Portrait While in Cast for Broken Leg

Neff’s self-portraits depict her body as it changes with age or with life’s random accidents. In 1974, she was struck by a car while crossing at Broad and Pine Streets, near the Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts), where she was teaching. She suffered a fractured tibia and, as shown here, had to wear a full-leg cast for several months. Gazing at herself in the mirror, she seems confident in her ability to coordinate her eye and hand, even as her leg is compromised.