The Artist Self-Portrait

As I paint my last painting of the year, a self-portrait, I thought I would investigate the artist self-portrait as a genre.

The earliest self portrait reported was in 1433, see below.

Portrait of a Man (Self Portrait?),^[1] also often known as Portrait of a Man in a Turban, or in a red turban, etc., is an oil painting by the Early Netherlandish master Jan van Eyck, from 1433, may well be the earliest known panel self-portrait.^[1]

Many of you might recognize Frida Kahlo's self-portrait below.



Frida_Kahlo_(self_portrait).jpg
‎(384 × 500 pixels, file size: 177 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg)

Fair use rationale for use in Frida Kahlo

Self-portrait by author, used for fair use to show both artist's style and what she looked like. Unreplaceable by free image as no free image is known to exist. Painted in 1940. The image linked here is claimed to be used under fair use as:
--The artwork is only being used for informational purposes.
 

This is where my self-portrait is right now.... in process...looking at the above photos, I see that I have a long way to go!

Self-portrait, 16 x 20 inches, Acrylic on Canvas
Copyright 2013 Mary Rush Gravelle

The eyes are blank right now because I had to rework them. You can see more in process photos on my facebook page.

More next week....


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Citation of self-portraits and images: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-portrait