This is the only self portrait in the retrospective and it's called Howdy Neighbor. It was produced in 1936 which was right in the midst of his other production of Dust Bowl paintings. When he was probably the most acutely aware of our environmental problems and man's misuse of the land. Here he is with arms folded. It's produced with graphite, pencil on paper, and again a testament to his skill, the grain of wood, the fence post that he is leaning on. He's holding a brush, an artist being vigilant, always vigilant about what we need to look at, our vision, our perspective. An artist needing to make a statement about what is occurring in our culture, in terms of nature. On one side of him there are furrowed lands. On the other side of his shoulder are tire ruts, so one side of the land is being used perhaps in an environmental conscious way; another side is threatening to be over plowed. A characteristic windmill in the background. And also he uses this, the tire ruts, the barbed wire, the fencing post, as a way to always lead your eye back to the scene, back to the horizon, but I think the most confrontation aspect and jolting aspect of this is his unblinking eyes, staring directly at the viewer, eye to eye contact, doing so again with his hands folded, holding the brush and with this wonderful natty tie and checkered shirt. [Transcription of audio clip at https://soundcloud.com/art-matters/alexander-hogue-howdy-neighbor] “I don’t like to be called a ‘regionalist’ or ‘American scene painter,’ or, as Life magazine called me, ‘painter of the Dust Bowl,” proclaimed Hogue even as he urged farmers to cooperate with federal soil conservation efforts. “My paintings are as much a statement of what may happen as what has happened―a warning of impending danger in terms of present conditions...." [http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2015/08/arty-farty-friday-alexandre-hogue.html]