Winold Reiss, 16 Sep 1886 - 29 Aug 1953 - W. E. B. Du Bois - 1925 - T-Shirt

Winold Reiss's 1925 pastel portrait shows W. E. B. Du Bois seated in a pale suit, his gaze lowered, held against a warm cream ground.

Visual Elements & Composition

The vertical portrait is built around a bust-length figure, and cream fills about half of the image, giving the sitter a quiet, open field. The face and hands are modelled in warm brown and rose-toned crayon, with soft shadow under the brow and along the jaw. Light grey and charcoal define the jacket, the waistcoat and a grey tie beneath a soft collar, while a dark cord runs down the front of the waistcoat. Fine pencil contours trace the sleeves, and a hand rests in the lower foreground. The artist's signature sits in the lower right corner, and the only lettering in the image is the name WINOLD REISS.

Meaning & Symbolism

The portrait presents Du Bois as a public thinker. His measured expression and formal dress carry the authority of a scholar, editor and civil rights leader who wrote The Souls of Black Folk (1903) and edited The Crisis, the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Reiss, a German-born painter who settled in the United States, avoided the caricatured features common in the illustrated press of the day. In 1925 he made portraits of Harlem Renaissance figures for Alain Locke's anthology The New Negro, and this image of Du Bois is among the best known from that project.

Wearing a Piece of Reiss's Portrait

A portrait drawn in soft crayon reads best when seen up close, and a tee carries it across the chest where the face of the drawing sits at eye level. The cream ground, the warm flesh tones and the grey tailoring translate directly onto the shirt, so the composition stays intact as you move through the day. Wearing it puts a reflective 1925 image of one of the era's most influential thinkers in front of you.