Self-portrait

Unconventional women intrigued Romaine Brooks. She met many in Paris during her fifty-year relationship with Natalie Barney. Their defiance of gender and sexual norms made the traditions of female portraiture obsolete. Brooks responded by painting a psychologically probing “series of modern women” that included this striking self-portrait.

After years of poverty as an artist, Brooks unexpectedly inherited a fortune in 1902. Freed from the struggle for survival, she began to rebuild her damaged sense of self. She altered her image time and again while seeking her place in life.
Brooks’s self-portrait hides as much as it reveals. Heavy white powder and red lipstick mask her face. The shadow of her hat shields her eyes. Her shapeless clothing camouflages her body. She adopts a gesture of masculine nonchalance, tucking a thumb into her coat. Rising before the ashes of a ruined city, Brooks presents herself as an enigmatic survivor.