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Art History’s Best Mustaches: All Movember’s Facial Hair in One ‘Stache-Tastic Place

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As you may have noticed, we’ve spent much of the last month poring over art history’s best mustaches, like the would-be surgeons curiously leaning over the corpse in Rembrandt’s “The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp” (1632, above), which was the penultimate pick in our Movember series. Now, for the sake of convenience, we’ve gathered all 17 featured artworks in one convenient place.

We launched our series with Thomas Phillips’s stunning 1835 portrait of Romantic poet Lord Byron dressed as an Albanian (above), in which the costumed man of letters shows off his skinny pencile-handlebar mustache.

One of the funniest works we came across was George Luks’s “Otis Skinner as Col. Philippe Bridau” (1919, above), in which the subject strikes a hilarious pose made all the more humorous by his imperial-handlebar ’stache.

On Auguste Rodin’s 172nd birthday we featured John Singer Sargent’s dark 1884 portrait of the French sculptor (above), who is pictured with a thick fork beard.

Though it was executed by an unknown artist, the late-19th century portrait of British railroad man Sir John McClure (above) features one of the most memorable facial hairstyles of our series, a stunning flapwing mustache-beard hybrid.

The series’ first foray into contemporary art came with Ana Mendieta’s 1972 performance “Untitled Facial Hair transplant, moustache” (above), for which the late artist donned a collaborator’s freshly trimmed handlebar ’stache.

Jean Arp’s Dada construction “Schnurruhr (Mustache Watch)” (1923, above) may have been the series’ most abstract ’stache.

Though he’s neither laughing, nor a cavalier, the subject of Frans Hals’s “The Laughing Cavalier” (1624, above) wears a terrific combination of a handlebar mustache and chin puff beard.

The series’ only ceramic work was a startlingly colorful bust of Jesus, “Ecce Homo” (ca. 1500, above), with a turquoise ducktail beard.

Joyce Pensato’s practically abstract portrait of Groucho Marx, “Flying Mustach” (2012, above), was the most recent work featured in our series.

Otto Dix’s expressionist portrait of noted hypnotherapist Dr. Heinrich Stadelmann from 1922 (above) may be the closest we came to featuring a work of science-fiction in our series.

Similarly cryptic, though a little more mysterious, was Edvard Munch’s gloomy “Self-Portrait With Burning Cigarette” (1895, above).

We tried to count the individual hairs in Chuck Close’s meticulous photorealist portrait “Robert/104,072” (1973-74, above), but we kept losing count.

Marcel Duchamp’s mustachioed “Mona Lisa,” “L.H.O.O.Q.” (1919, above), may be the most incontrovertible of all art historical mustaches.

More obscured, but arguably more epic, was Jeff Koons’s suspended metal ’stache sculpture, “Moustache” (2003, above).

Our series’ second performance art facial hairpiece belonged to Adrian Piper, who donned a bushy handlebar mustache for her 1973-75 series “The Mythic Being” (above).

Finally, we spoke to the New York City street artist Patrick “Moustache Man” Waldo about his work, his street art collection, and the mustache meme.

Find each individual Movember post here.

— Benjamin Sutton


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