Rosa Rolanda, Autorretrato (Self-Portrait)
Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
Chosen by: Rod Bigelow, Executive Director

The work is currently located in a grand salon hang with over 25 other works in our early American galleries. It’s oil on canvas, with Rolanda’s face taking up nearly the entire frame. She emphasizes a bright blue sky and wondrous green landscape in the background.

Self-portraits are prevalent in our collection, but most are of men. To me, the work is powerful and confident, but some could interpret it as ambiguously aloof. The eyes are alluring, and you can’t help but lock eyes in a long stare. To build intrigue, Rolanda has included an ornate butterfly flying directly in front of her, interrupting her elongated neck. The butterfly could be interpreted in so many ways, including transformation, spirituality, or a journey of the soul. The work is important because it builds depth in our portraiture collection, but also because it invites dialogue and inspires curiosity as to many ways of interacting with the work from various cultural perspectives.

A native Californian with Mexican and Scottish ancestry, Rolanda had a varied practice that included choreography and photography, in addition to painting. In fact, she became a celebrated dancer and performer in New York City before touring with the Ziegfeld Follies in Paris, where she met and was photographed (memorably in flamenco costume) by Man Ray. After she moved to Mexico City in the 1930s, she delved more into painting. She described herself as a neo-figurative artist, but like her friend Frida Kahlo, she is also associated with Mexican modernism, a revolutionary movement that aimed to foreground indigenous Mexican identity.

This isn’t a work that I include on most tours, rather I take a quiet moment with “her” when walking through the galleries to calm and center me. Rolanda included her signature in the bottom right corner, in small capital letters. In making and signing her self-portrait, she was grappling with her own identity—something we all do from time to time.

—Rod Bigelow, Crystal Bridges executive director, as told to Margaret Carrigan.

What artwork hangs across from Mona Lisa? What lies downstairs from Van Gogh’s Sunflowers? In “The Permanent Collection,” we journey to museums around the globe, illuminating hidden gems and sharing stories behind artworks that often lie beyond the spotlight.