Samuel Johnson Woolf, 12 Feb 1880 - 3 - John Raskob - c. 1930 - T-Shirt

A charcoal portrait of industrialist John Raskob, drawn around 1930, presents a balding man in a dark suit and white collar, looking out with a steady, reserved expression.

Visual Elements & Composition

The drawing is built from soft grey tones on cream paper, with the cream ground doing much of the work of the light. The darkest passages sit in the hair, the shadowed side of the face and the jacket lapels, while the forehead and cheekbones catch the light and stand forward. A loosely sketched field of vertical strokes rises behind the sitter's shoulder, fading into open paper so the attention stays on the face and the white collar. The artist's signature sits in the lower left corner beside the jacket.

Meaning & Symbolism

Raskob's career linked the Du Pont company with General Motors finance, and he chaired the Democratic National Committee in the late 1920s and early 1930s. The portrait records a man at the height of his public and business influence. Its direct, composed gaze follows the conventions of formal likeness-making of the period, presenting the sitter as a figure of authority rather than a candid moment. The drawing comes from Samuel Johnson Woolf, an American portraitist known for charcoal likenesses of prominent figures in business, politics and the arts, and its economy of means, careful modelling in the face set against suggestion in the surroundings, shows the format at its most controlled.

Wearing the Portrait

A portrait built around a single face suits a shirt that is worn close to the body, where the sitter's gaze meets the viewer at chest level. The head-and-shoulders composition places the face at the centre of the wearer's own frame, so the restrained, watchful expression reads clearly when the shirt is seen from across a room or up close in conversation.