Painted self-portrait
Gender Genres
30.05.2017 | AWARE
Browse by Themes
Maria Lassnig, Zwei Arten zu sein (Doppelselbstporträt), 2000 © Maria Lassnig Foundation
From Catharina van Hemessen, a 16th-century artist and pioneer of the self-portrait, to Suzanne Valadon’s early 20th-century paintings, self-portraits have spanned epochs and remain a favoured subject among women artists. Since they were excluded from model and nude classes for so long, they fell back on using their own bodies as examples, thus documenting various stages of their lives, such as Paula Modersohn-Becker’s pregnancy (Self-Portrait on Her Sixth Wedding Anniversary, 1906), or Frida Kahlo’s infirmity and confinement to bed (The Broken Column, Self-portrait, 1944). Whether realistic or abstract (Pat Steir’s Waterfall self-portraits), self-portraiture has often represented a form of emancipation for women painters.
1907 — 1954 | Mexico
Frida Kahlo
1919 — 2014 | Austria
Maria Lassnig
1940 | United States
Pat Steir
1876 — 1907 | Germany
Paula Modersohn-Becker
1876 — 1925 | France
Lucie Cousturier
1913 — 1991 | Hungary
Margit Anna
1872 — 1937 | France
Jane Atché (dite Jal)
1865 — Poland | 1940 — France
Olga Boznańska
1878 — 1974 | France
Émilie Charmy
1876 — United Kingdom | 1939 — France
Gwen John
1869 — 1954 | Finland
Ellen Thesleff
1901 — Germany | 1987 — United Kingdom
Else Meidner
1861 — Finland | 1919 — Italy
Elin Danielson-Gambogi
1904 — Estonia | 1993 — Sweden
Karin Luts
1917 — Germany | 1943 — Poland
Charlotte Salomon
1904 — Belarus | 1982 — France
Nadia Khodossiévitch-Léger
1862 — 1946 | Finland
Helene Schjerfbeck
1900 — 1961 | Ukraine
Kateryna Bilokour
1921 — 1985 | Hungary
Ilka Gedő
1887 — 1956 | United Kingdom
Nina Hamnett
1970 | Austria
Elke Silvia Krystufek
1886 — 1973 | South Africa
Maggie Laubser
1895 — China | 1977 — France
Pan Yuliang
1945 — 2020 | United States
Susan Rothenberg
1911 — 2013 | Spain
Ángeles Santos Torroella
1901 — Turkey | 1991 — Jordan
Fahrelnissa Zeid
1856 — Germany | 1927 — France
Louise Breslau
1859 — Switzerland | 1937 — Germany
Ottilie W. Roederstein
1827 — 1888 | France
Éléonore Escallier
1903 — 1974 | Turkey
Aliye Berger
1885 — Turkey | 1954 — United Sates
Mihri Rasim
1905 — Turkey | 1938 — France
Hale Asaf
1893 — 1978 | Mexico
Nahui Olin
1903 — 1985 | China
GUAN Zilan (Violet Kwan)
1985 — United States | 1970 — Mexico
Rosa Rolanda (Rosemonde Cowan)
1946 | Poland
Ewa Kuryluk
1884 — Ukraine | 1967 — France
Zinaida Serebriakova
1956 | United States
Nomi Tannhauser
1883 — Austria-Hungary (Croatia) | 1964 — Yugoslavia (Croatia)
