Jeffrey Smart

Jeffrey Smart
Self-portrait, Procida

Creation date: 1950–51

Jeffrey Smart was inspired by the poetry of TS Eliot. The opening lines of the poem ‘Burnt Norton’ in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets (1943) are:

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.

In this self-portrait, Smart looks out intently at the viewer as a young, determined artist. His portrait is a painting within a painting, memorialising his time spent on the Italian island of Procida.

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From the Audio Guide