Even though the self-portrait through the effortless ability to make “selfies’ has become ubiquitous we will, nevertheless, collect a trove of snapshots over a lifetime. These will include group portraits that document the social context of our lives, showing us with our families, our friends, and our colleagues. Whether formally or informally composed, individual faces and gestures will be subsumed into the congregate reality of the group. The occasions and events these images record will range from collectively celebrated birthdays, parties, holidays, sightseeing excursions to professional gatherings.

The group portrait has a long and rich history, gaining social import and a high degree of artistic excellence in Dutch painting of the seventeenth century.  As an artist with training as an art historian, Dean learned how to compose tableaux on an epic scale using his animatronic figures, his studio assistants, and himself as actors in a variety of provocative and playful narratives as seen in Case Study: Gross Clinic; Still- At the Gym; Still- The Agnew Clinic; Still – Studio View After Jan Van Eyck, 2019.