Self-Portrait with Empire State Building

"Self-Portrait with Empire State Building" from 1959 — year given as printed, with a 1954 catalogue date — places Munakata's face against the most iconic New York landmark, creating a collision between the Japanese printmaker and American urban modernity. The Empire State Building as backdrop for a self-portrait is an assertion of presence: Munakata situating himself within the global visual landscape that his 1956 Venice triumph had made his domain. The juxtaposition of his carved Japanese face and the American skyscraper is quietly comic and deeply characteristic — his self-portraits often had this quality of unforced wit.