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15 Amazing Famous Artists Self Portraits
All my drawings are self-portraits.
“All my images are self-portraits, even when I’m not in them.”
― Nuno Roque.
A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist.
Self-portraits have been made since the earliest times. But it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century that artists can be frequently identified by themselves as either the main subject or as important characters in their work.
And with better mirrors, many painters, sculptors, and printmakers tried some form of self-portraiture.
Jean Fouquet, c. 1450.
A very early portrait miniature.
During the Baroque period, printed portraits of artists had a market, and many were self-portraits.
Self-portraits were sometimes given as gifts to family and friends.
They avoided the need to arrange for a model, and for the many professional portrait painters, a self-portrait kept in the studio acted as a demonstration of the artist’s skill for potential new clients.
A self-portrait may be a portrait of the artist, or a portrait included in a larger work, including a group portrait.
Many painters are said to have included specific people, including themselves, in painting figures in religious or other types of composition.
Caterina van Hemessen’s 1548 self-portrait.
perhaps the oldest self-portrait of a female oil painter, though much earlier examples of manuscript painters exist.
Self-portrait by Judith Leyster.
A Dutch Golden Age painter, mostly of genre subjects. NGA, 1630.
