Gilbert Lewis, Untitled [Man in colorblocked shirt]

Lewis was interested in the details of self-expression, like clothing and tattoos, and the relationship between the figure and objects, like furniture, that anchor it in the pictorial space. He frequently painted the same model and he created another portrait of this sitter, but creating a likeness was not a priority. One of Lewis’s longtime models, Anthony Rullo, explained, “Sometimes he would do pictures of me and they didn’t look like me. I would say, well, why doesn’t it? He would say, well, it’s not about looking like you, it’s about how I see you.”