Painter and lecturer CARL PLANSKY was educated at the Maryland Institute of Art and the New York Studio School. He has been featured on The Osgood File on CBS Radio, and in articles in The New York Times, The New Republic, Art in America, The New Criterion, and Art and Antiques. His work is included in numerous collections including the Arkansas Arts Center in Little Rock, the Asheville Art Museum, the Northern Alleghenies Museum, the Bank of America Collection in San Francisco, the Bankers Trust in New York City, the Hercules Corporation in Wilmington, DE, and the the Butler Museum in Youngstown, OH. The character which Plansky assumed in this self-portrait was that of Anita Cerquetti, an exceptional soprano who had a short career in the 1950s. She made headlines when, in 1958, she replaced an ailing Maria Callas at the Rome Opera House. This self-portrait is interesting because it doesn't resemble Plansky's physical appearance at all. In fact, the portrait is that of Cerquetti. So why a self-portrait? Where there is not a physical resemblence, then it is reasonable to assume that there is a spiritual one. Perhaps Plansky, who is also Founder and President of Williamsburg Art Supplies, admires the way an aspiring talent embodied by Cerquetti, shook the opera world by doing what many thought could not be done.