Rebekka Seigel
Self-Portraits Study Guide

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST HOLDING A THISTLE
Albrecht Durer, German 1493

Some artists have used the self-portrait to present themselves to the world in the way in which they would like their audience to see them. After completing his apprenticeship as a painter in his hometown of Nuremberg, Germany, Durer continued his studies during a four-year journey through Germany and Switzerland. While he was away from home, Durer created this self-portrait to show his future in-laws that he was an ideal husband for their beloved daughter.

By clothing himself in the robes of a scholar, Durer reveals his belief that painters are learned men with a mission to educate. The eyes suggest that nothing escapes Durer in his search for artistic perfection. He holds a thistle, the traditional symbol of fidelity, to express both his devotion to art and to his future wife.


SELF-PORTRAIT WITH STRAW HAT
Vincent van Gogh, Dutch 1888

Many artists do self-portraits because they are too poor to hire models. Such was the case with Vincent van Gogh who was a great innovator in creating new techniques for putting paint on the surface of a canvas. Van Gogh shaped his straw hat, face and jacket with directional strokes of paint. He formed the hat with curved parallel lines of yellow, tan and green that define it’s contours and texture. His intense expression combined with the vigorous dashes of thick paint create a feeling of restless energy. Over a period of two years, van Gogh created 22 self-portraits that chronicle the artist’s turbulent emotions as he wrestled with new ways to express how light gives form to objects.


SELF-PORTRAIT WITH A PALETTE
Pablo Picasso, Spanish 1906

Picasso was inspired by primitive folk art carvings when he painted this self-portrait. It is almost mask like, giving one the feeling that he stripped away distracting details in the same way that a sculptor removes unnecessary wood when carving. Picasso painted only the lines and shapes that clearly conveyed the forms of his head and body. he portrays himself as a self-absorbed, almost aggressive young man through the fixed expression and clenched fist. In this portrait, Picasso combined his love for primitive art with his constant search for innovative ways to express his artistic vision.


SELF-PORTRAIT
Otto Dix, German 1912

Some artists are able to pay homage to their heroes with a self-portrait thus telling something about their heroes and about themselves. Otto Dix studied the work of Albrecht Durer, who is regarded as a hero in Germany, both by artists and by ordinary people. Dix created this self-portrait in order to study painting techniques perfected 400 years earlier by Renaissance artists. He modeled this painting on Durer’s youthful self-portrait. The pose is nearly identical, down to the flower held between his thumb and forefinger, but Dix, who was moved by Vincent van Gogh’s emotional self-portraits, created an uneasy feeling through the scowling expression and the harsh lighting.


SELF-PORTRAIT WITH MONKEY
Frida Kahlo, Mexican 1938

When Frida Kahlo was 18 years old, she nearly died in a bus accident. Forced to stay in bed for 2 years, she began painting to escape from pain and loneliness. In this self-portrait, which she created 13 years later, Kahlo projects awareness of her powers as an artist and her pride as a woman. She constructs an image so sharply detailed and richly colored that it seems beyond reality. With a touch of humor, Kahlo mirrored her own expression in the monkey’s face. Kahlo created a unique, autobiographical body of work in which she reveals the inner strength and passion with which she overcame her physical disabilities.


BIG SELF PORTRAIT
Chuck Close, American 1968

Measuring 9’ X 7’ this really is a big self-portrait! Chuck Close paints everything based on a grid. By breaking his subjects down into little squares, he is able to “see” his subject more clearly. One day in his studio, Close took a photograph of himself staring into the camera. He divided the photograph into squares and penciled in a matching grid on his large canvas. Then he translated onto the canvas each square of the photo, including the parts that were a little out of focus. He made this painting as truthful as he could though the giant scale meant the imperfections of his face were magnified. This painting is revolutionary for its large scale and the unsparing detail that focuses the viewer to see the subject matter in a new way.The painting becomes a topographical map of a face with each freckle charted. The familiarity of 2 eyes,a nose, a mouth, a chin is magnified into a question. Is this really what we look like?


THE STUDIO
Jacob Lawrence, American 1977

Some self-portraits are more than just the body or face of the artist. In 1977 Lawrence painted The Studio, a self-portrait in which the artist’s working space symbolizes his character. He created a scene bristling with the energy of bright primary colors. A zigzag stair rail slices through the room. He chose a high point of view and tilted the floor down to invite the viewer into the busy workspace. Lawrence exaggerated the size of his hands holding the tools of his trade to represent the artist’s power as an image builder. He said that we can understand his work better by seeing his studio than by hearing him speak. This painting clearly proves his point.


TAR BEACH
Faith Ringgold, American 1988

Some artists tell their history through the use of the self-portrait not by working with how they look now, but how they remember looking back when. Ringgold tells the story of her family picnics on the roof of their apartment building in Harlem in New York City when she was a girl lying on a blanket looking up at the stars. Ringgold painted her image, but she made a border for the piece out of pieced fabric like the quilts that her mother and grandmother made. This reinforces the time and place in which the painting takes place. The frame of the piece echoes the border of the quilt on which the girls lie. The story of the rooftop picnics in words is also a part of the portrait. Ringgold’s portrait is revolutionary in bringing other ways of making art besides painting into her artistic vocabulary.


SELF-PORTRAIT WITH NELLIES
Rebekka Seigel, American 1995

Seigel has enjoyed making quilts about faces for many years. While teaching quiltmaking in Northern Ireland, she became intrigued by the embroidery traditions she came across there and decided to ply her own needle upon her return home. After making portraits of others for so long, she decided it was time to do one of herself. The portraits in her hands, the hands that are of great importance to her as a quilt artist and craftsperson, are of her grandmother, Nellie and her daughter, Nellie. She sees herself as a link in the chain that connects them. Her grandmother was a quilt maker who inspired her to make quilts and her daughter is an artist, carrying on that part of her passion. She has surrounded herself by folk art inspired motifs because she feels that her approach to the art of quilt making grows out of a folk art tradition passed down to her by her grandmother. The snake shaped earrrings that she wears allude to the many quilts she has made with a snake theme. The techniques used to produce this self-portrait are called applique and embroidery and do not involve painting.