Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528)

Dürer was a supremely gifted and versatile German Renaissance artist. He was born in Nuremberg, one of the great artistic and commercial centers in Europe during the 15th and 16th centuries. He was a brilliant painter, draftsman, and writer, although he is most famous, and probably made the greatest artistic impact, as a printmaker. This is one of his self-portraits. He cast a bold light on his own image through a number of striking pictures, drawn, painted and printed. They reveal a self-assured dude, eager to assert his creative genius while still showing by a clear-eyed, yet foreboding outlook. Dürer’s epitaph proclaimed:

“Whatever was mortal in Albrecht Dürer lies beneath this mound.”

He sure was arrestingly handsome. Oh wait, maybe this isn’t Durer after all; it might be that guy that I met in Golden Gate Park in March 1967. We dropped acid together and we spent the day together drawing bunnies. He was talented and we nearly got arrested. I get them mixed-up.