Artists - Part 60

 Self-Portraits

Artists have been making self-portraits for thousands of years.  The ancient Greek sculptor Phidias is said to have included a likeness of himself in the sculptures on the Parthenon.  But in modern Western art, the earliest examples are from the Renaissance period.

Above, a nude self-portrait by German artist Albrecht Durer, c. 1509.

After that, there were many self-portraits, but practically none of them were nude until the twentieth century.  Above, Self-Portrait Standing at Easel, 1907-1908, by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, best known for his painting The Scream.

Pablo Picasso drew Nude Self-Portrait with Raised Arm in 1902 at age 21, when his style was still realist.

Years later, in 1966 at age 85, Picasso made another nude Self-Portrait.

Austrian painter Richard Gerstl painted Nude Self-Portrait with Palette in 1908.

Austrian artist Egon Schiele painted many nude self-portraits in his characteristic distorted Expressionist style.  Above, Grimassierendes Aktselbstbildnis (Grimacing Nude Self-Portrait), 1910.

Another Egon Schiele nude self-portrait from 1916.

In 1954, Spanish artist Salvador Dali painted Dali Nude in Contemplation of Five Regular Bodies in his surrealist style, but he cheated by hiding the goods behind an object floating in the air.

Ecce Homo is a 1976 self-portrait by British artist Cyril Mann, showing him posing nude between two other self-portraits.  By the way, in Latin, "ecce homo" means "behold the man", not "behold the homo."

This 1993 self-portrait by British painter Lucian Freud is called Painter working, Reflection.

The 21st century has produced some interesting self-portraits.  This is a photo of Mexican-American artist Felix d'Eon painting a self-portrait in 2011.

And here's the result: Self-Portrait as Vitruvian Man, harkening back to a famous nude drawing by Leonardo da Vinci.

Latvian painter Juris Utans produced Self Portrait 2 Male Nude in 2009.  Unlike Salvador Dali, he went right for the critical spot.

We end with Self-Portrait Costa Rica, 2017, by American erotic artist Marc DeBauch, featuring a bunch of animals, birds and reptiles.  Oh – maybe you were looking at something else.