From Diego Velázquez’s clever play of representing himself in Las Meninas to Frida Kahlo’s series of paintings about her struggle and growth as an artist, self-portraits have been for the most part, an integral part of an artist’s development in their chosen craft. In his work, The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History, James Hall says that “the painter’s opinion of himself is a part of his equipment. He needs his conceit, as an opera singer does. Pride and a certain exultation nourish any physical skill”, and it shows that self-portraits present as the manifestation of the artist’s idea of self image in their art. My gallery shows self-portraits across periods of time and how they are expressed through different types of media: traditional painting, photography, sculpture and installation art.
