Self-Portraits by Women

Feature image: Remedios Varo, Self-portrait with Unicorn, private collection, via Daily Art Magazine

This summer, the Albuquerque Museum featured various self-portraits of women in their exhibit “Making American Artists: Stories from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 1776- 1976.” The exhibit was showcased from May 18th, 2024, to August 11th, 2024. According to the Albuquerque Museum, the exhibit featured over 100 pieces of art that helped “shape conversations about the nation’s history and identity.” The exhibit explored American history involving many women, LGBTQIIA+, and minority artists from the late seventeenth century until the 1970s. When considering portraits altogether, the exhibit offered a definition of “portraiture,” which means “The art of creating a graphic and detailed description, especially of a person.” The exhibit’s definition of “portraiture” was supported by a collection of self-portraits of women by female artists.

Women who have painted self-portraits of themselves, as artists, and other women offered a realistic portrayal of women during their time. This article focuses on the self-portraits by female artists during the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, who painted women in their natural estate – doing chores, creating art, or a portrait of themselves. Unlike male artists, who often painted women in the nude or the male gaze, the following female artists had their women and themselves clothed and participated in everyday activities. This article will explore and argue both viewpoints. 

In 1826, Jane Copper Sully Darley painted a Detail of the “Madonna della Sedia” (acter Thomas Sully, after Raphael. Jane became an artist thanks to her father, who exposed her to theater and art. She often collaborated with her father during her career as an artist, and she would copy his work. Her father wasn’t the only artist she copied. Tragically, in the 18th century, a woman could only make a career as an artist by copying the artwork of male artists. Thus, Jane’s portrait at the Albuquerque Museum was a copy of Raphael’s work, who was an artist during the Italian Renaissance. Jane’s version of Raphael’s portrait “reveals her theatrical taste for dramatic poses and light effects, which may have been inspired by the independent actresses that were a part of her life-long social and professional network.” Having started the trend of self-portraits painted by women, Jane learned from her father and Raphael before venturing into her own work. 

Sixty- two years later, another female artist, Anna Elizabeth Klumpke, painted a portrait of a group of women working in a washroom. A group of four women are standing around a water tube, laughing and giggling while they work or complete chores. Viewers can infer either or, but the bottom line is that the women are enjoying one another’s company. Klumpke’s painting became the first painting ever to win the Temple Gold Medal at PAFA, “a prize that had been awarded to a male artist since 1883.” Klumpke is one of three women to this day to win the Temple Gold Medal award, until it stopped being awarded to artists in 1968. She set the bar high as an artist and a woman for female artists after her. 

Shifting to the twentieth century in 1940, Laura Wheeler Waring painted The Study of a Student. Waring’s self-portrait “is an intimate half-length portrait of one of her, rendering the subject in a moment of inner reflection and revealing the intimacy existing between artists.” The museum emphasized how essential Warring’s self-portraits of women were at the time; Warring’s portraits “illustrate the power of female networks, be they of friends, lovers, or fellow art students.” Warring wanted to focus on the psychological impact and lives of women up close. 

Later, in 1977, Joan Brown painted Self-Portrait. Her portrait “is one of the most monumental self-portraits Joan Brown (she) painted and in its scale and importance to her career.” According to the museum, Brown was a second-generation Bay Area Figurative artist experimenting with autobiographical subjects and incorporating spiritual beliefs. She was known for her brush stroke. Viewers can see her brush stroke in effect with the yellow surrounding the vase and the various colors splattered on the floor. The museum further shared how Brown’s colorful self-portrait rivaled Charles Willson Peale’s portrait The Artist in His Museum, which was also featured at the exhibit. Unlike Peale’s portrait, Brown’s portrait offers strong feminine energy with her use of pastel colors. 

- All the portraits of women mentioned above differ from John Vanderlyn’s work. Interestingly, his painting “was one of the most artistically advanced paintings of its day – not to mention being one of the first nudes ever exhibited in the United States.” Vanderlyn’s painting is based on the Greek Mythological tale, Theseus and the Minotaur, but he focuses on Ariadne, who helped Theseus escape. Ariadne is painted nude and positioned in a sensual pose asleep. This is not a real woman; this is a fictional woman. Viewers can infer this is painted through the male gaze. The museum mentioned how Ariadne being nude was problematic at the time, for “the nude body Ariadne can be read as a conflicted allegory of the political, economic, and genocidal decisions of the New Republic.” Painting a naked woman is a fantasy for viewers. 

All the women above painted portraits of “real” women within their era. The female artists centered on who the women were in their portraits or painted women naturally. There is no sexualization in the paintings. It's women being women. The paintings by the female artists are far different from John Vanderlyn’s Ariadne Asleep on the Island of Naxos. Vanderlyn painted Ariadne from Greek Mythology nude, lying on the ground sensually after Theseus abandoned her. Unlike the self-portraits by the women, their artwork did not cause a problem because they showed real women. Female artists like Jane Cooper Dolley, may have learned from male artists by copying them. However, by the time Joan Brown painted her self-portrait, female artists had developed their own names and identities within their work.

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