EYE CANDY
Selfies through the Centuries, from the 1500’s to Warhol
ARTIST ROOMS National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. Acquired jointly through The d’Offay Donation with assistance from the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Art Fund 2008 © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London 2015
Long before iPhones, Snapchat filters, Kim Kardashian, and Cindy Sherman, painters like Rembrandt were painstakingly accepting their worst angles and inventing their best, all in pursuit of the art of the selfie. It’s a torch that Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, and Marina Abramovic have all nobly helped carry throughout the centuries, rendering their own likenesses in everything from pencil to Polaroid film to oil paint. “Facing the World,” up now at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, gathers nearly 500 years’ worth of artists self-portraits. See the best, from Ai Weiwei’s hospital-bed snaps to hooligans tearing into ricotta in the 1500’s, here.
1Andy Warhol, “Self-Portrait with Platinum Bouffant Wig,” 1981.
2Hans Thoma, “Self-Portrait with Love and Death,” 1875.
3Marina Abramović, “Art must be Beautiful, Artist must be Beautiful,” 1975.
4Joseph Vivien, “Self-Portrait (Autoportrait à la palette),” 1715.
5Ai Weiwei, “[Untitled – Hospital selfie],” 2009.
6Palma Vecchio (Jacopo Negretti), “Self-Portrait,” 1510.
7Robert Mapplethorpe, “Self Portrait,” 1980.
8Vincenzo Campi, “The Ricotta Eaters,” ca.1580.
9Gustave Courbet, “The Lovers in the Countryside, Feelings of Youth (The Happy Lovers),” 1844.
10James Nasmyth, “Back of Hand,” 1874.
11Louise Janmot, “Self-portrait,” 1832.
12Samuel Van Hoogstraten, “Trompe-l’oeil (Still Life),” 1966.
13Robert Mapplethorpe, “Self Portrait,” 1985.
14Rembrandt, “Self-Portrait, Aged 51,” c.1657.
15Paul Klee, “Gespenst eines Genies, no. 10 [Ghost of a Genius],” 1922.
16Anselm Feuerbach, “Self-portrait as a Young Man,” 1852-53.
17John Byrne, “John Patrick Byrne, b. 1940. Artist, dramatist and stage designer (Self-portrait in a Flowered Jacket),” 1971 -73.
