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SATURDAY EVENING POST
August 17th, 2024
In part two of our edition on artist self-portraits we’ll be looking at the history and evolution of what has become the world’s most popular self portrait medium, photography.
Owing in part to the medium’s focus on creating facsimiles of subjects placed in front of the lens and the technical hurdles confronted by early practitioners, photographic self-portraits began with a focus on the literal representation of the artist. Since then, photographic self-portraits have explored a wide range methodologies and provide an interesting window into the gaze of artists who pick up the camera.
Robert Cornelius, Self-Portrait, 1839, daguerreotype, 3.54 x 2.72 in. (9 x 6.9 cm). Image courtesy of The Library of Congress.
The first known photographic self-portrait was taken by Robert Cornelius, an American inventor and pioneer in the field of photography. Like many early photographers, Cornelius was an inventor and scientist by trade, and his early training in silver plating and metal polishing made him uniquely qualified to explore the medium of daguerreotypes.The first known photographic self-portrait was taken by Robert Cornelius, an American inventor and pioneer in the field of photography. Like many early photographers, Cornelius was an inventor and scientist by trade, and his early training in silver plating and metal polishing made him uniquely qualified to explore the medium of daguerreotypes.
Developed in 1839, daguerreotypes were the first publicly available and stable form of photography which employed the use of light sensitive materials applied to polished silver-plated copper panels. Immediately taken with the process, Cornelius produced this small work in front of his family’s business with a camera obscura of his own design. The nature of photographs of the time required him to stand still for 10-15 minutes and lead to Cornelius’ efforts improve upon the medium, eventually managing to reduce the time time required to reduce such an image to under one minute.
Felix Nadar, Self-Portrait, 1860, Albumen print from a glass negative, 14.5 x 10.5 cm.
Felix Nadar, Revolving Self-Portrait, 1865, Gelatin silver print, 17 3/4 x 21 5/8 in. (45 x 55 cm). Private Collection, image courtesy of Conseil Investissement Art BNP Paribas.
Felix Nadar, Self-Portrait with Wife Ernestine in a Balloon Gondola, c. 1865 printed c. 1890, Gelatin silver print, 3 3/8 × 3 1/16 in. (8.6 × 7.7 cm). Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art.
Felix Nadar, Self-Portrait in Costume, c. 1862, Salted paper print from glass negative, 8 11/16 x 5 3/16 in. (22.1 x 13.2 cm). Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
As photography became a more widely available and capable technology, so did it’s application and usage by photographers. An early example of an intrepid individual who broadened it’s use was Felix Nadar, a French photographer, cartoonist, and and balloonist. While Nadar’s pioneering use of hot air balloons led to him being the first individual to take aerial photographs, he was also a renowned portrait photographer, photographing well known individuals of the time from actress Sarah Bernhardt to composer and pianist Franz Liszt.
Nadar often employed his own curious sense of humor when creating his self-portraits, from a series of self-portraits where he rotate slowly in a chair beginning and ending with the back of his head, to staging his hot air balloon basket in front of a painted backdrop with his wife in tow. This sense of humor, likely stemming from his work as a caricaturist, extended into the real world in through his Self-Portrait in Costume. Combining elements of traditional indigenous clothing with a full baroque wig, Nadar could be seen wearing this outfit to events around Paris, presenting his own living mocking commentary on the European Imperialist policies of the time being imposed onto Native cultures around the world.
Philippe Halsman, Photographer Philippe Halsman disguised as Salvador Dali. © Philippe Halsman & Magnum Photos.
Philippe Halsman, Self-portrait as the Mona Lisa, 1954. © Philippe Halsman & Magnum Photos.
Man Ray, Untitled (Self-Portrait with Camera), 1930, Solarized gelatin silver print, 4 3/4 × 3 1/2 in. (12.1 × 8.9 cm). Courtesy of The Jewish Museum.
Man Ray, Space Writing (Self Portrait), 1935, Gelatin silver print, 30.3 x 22 cm.
Man Ray, Self-Portrait, 1970, Screen-print on Altuglass, 20 1/2 × 14 1/2 in (52.1 × 36.8 cm)
As photography grew as a medium in the 20th century, so did artists’ interpretation of what the idea of a self-portrait in photography could include. Members of the Dada and Surrealist movements often employed an element of humor and increasingly loose interpretation of the genre.
Philippe Halsman worked closely with artists of the day, most notably Salvador Dali. Some of Halsman’s most well known images were made in collaboration with the surrealist icon, and his portrait disguised as the artist shows a levity shared by the the two friends.
Another icon of these movements, Man Ray, was a prolific portrait photographer in addition to his generally eclectic practice. His self portraits took on aspects of other branches of his practice, employing the techniques that he was using in making work at a particular moment. Self-portrait with Camera is an example of photographic solarization, a technique that he often used in his “ray-o-gram” prints. His late career self-portrait from 1970 shows a loose interpretation of the self portrait, recreating an early pre Dada work from 1960 in which he created a interactive piece with his handprint over the button for bells that would not ring and disappointing everyone who interacted with it, much to the amusement of Ray.
Stephen Shore, Room 125, Westbank Motel, Idaho Falls, Idaho, July 18, 1973, 1973, Chromogenic print. From the series Uncommon Places © Stephen Shore. Courtesy of 303 Gallery, New York.
Stephen Shore, Self-Portrait, New York, New York, March 20, 1976, 1976, Chromogenic print, 17 × 21 3/4 in. (43.2 × 55.2 cm). Collection of MoMa.
William Eggleston, Untitled from The Democratic Forest, c. 1983.
William Eggleston, Untitled, 1970. © Eggleston Artistic Trust.
William Eggleston, Untitled, 1970. © Eggleston Artistic Trust.
Practitioners of street photography prolifically document candid moments of everyday life, transforming these events from seemingly insignificant happenstance into time capsules. As a group that capture images of the people and places around them with such abandon, the moments the choose to turn the lens back on themselves can be of particular note.
William Eggleston is often considered the godfather of colour photography, championing the medium of colour film in its early days where most considered it to be a passing fad. Eggleston’s tireless application of the medium helped to establish its place in through brilliant execution of colour and composition. His images imbued mundane aspects of daily life with a certain magic that would go on to inspire the dreamlike production of David Lynch and many others.
“Often people ask what I’m photographing, which is a hard question to answer.
And the best what I’ve come up with is I just say: Life today.”
- William Eggleston
When he’s not inserting himself into the world around him through a reflection, his self portraits are simple. A single figure floating on a background and in a sea of colour bordering on the monochromatic, the images are simple, unassuming, and possess a boundless depth.
“There is nothing quite like the color in an Eggleston photograph – radiant in
their beauty, that get deep under the skin and linger in the imagination.”
- Phillip Prodger
Lee Friedlander, Tuscon, 1997, Gelatin silver print, 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.6 cm).
Lee Friedlander, California, 1997. Gelatin silver print. 14-15/16 x 14-13/16 in. Image courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Lee Friedlander, Montana, 1977, Gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.5 cm).
Lee Friedlander, New York City, 1966. Gelatin silver print. 5-3/4 x 8-11/16". Image courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.
Often referred to as “a photographer of everything, Lee Friedlander has spent a considerable part of his decades long career as a photographer turning his camera back on himself and inserting his presence into his images with a patented wit.
Through shadows, reflections, and a camera at arms length, Friedlander places himself in his images without restraint. His early self portraits images employ his shadow a central figure, a element often avoided in the genre. Through this implementation, he engages with his subjects and the world around him, embodying his role as documentarian.
In a later series of self-portraits, Friedland places trees and shrubbery and photographs himself unceremoniously, balancing comedy with an element of the grotesque akin to the portraits of Lucian Freud.
Jeff Wall, Untitled (Double Self-Portrait), 1979, Cibachrome transparencies in lightbox, 64 9/16 x 85 13/16 in. (164 x 218 cm).
Jeff Wall, Picture for Women, 1979, Cibachrome transparencies in lightbox, 56 1/8 x 80 1/2 in. (142.5 x 204.5 cm).
Édouard Manet, Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère (A Bar at the Folies-Bergère), 1882, Oil on canvas, 37.8 in × 51.2 in. (96 cm × 130 cm).
Jeff Wall’s incorporation of self-portrait into his early works embody many of the themes and methodologies that would become staples of the artist’s practice. While at first glance Wall’s Picture for Women appears to be a mundane depiction of two figures and a camera in the artist’s studio, Wall’s careful and meticulous consideration of composition, form, and references to art history serve as a vehicle to explore contemporary issues.
Wall often uses historical paintings as compositional references for his photographs, in this instance taking cues from Manet’s Un Bar aux Folies-Bergère to inform its construction. In Picture for Women, Wall mimics the figures in Manet’s work, from the positioning of the characters to the lighting and perspective within the space.
The central figure of the original reference material is replaced by the camera, capturing the artist in the moment of taking the scene and his gaze on the female figure, who in turn views both the artist and the viewer. Like Manet’s painting, her expression is indifferent to her viewer, set in performing her role as the model just as the barmaid is.
Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait, Polaroid, 1977, 4.25 x 3.35 in.
Andy Warhol, Self-portraits with Wigs, Polaroids, 1986.
Barbara Astman, Dear Ralph, “I Was Thinking About You…” Series, 1980, Chromogenic print, 14 x 11 in. (35.6 x 27.9 cm).
Work available in the gallery, please inquire.
Barbara Astman, Dear Sandra, “I Was Thinking About You…” Series, 1980, Chromogenic print, 14 x 11 in. (35.6 x 27.9 cm).
Work available in the gallery, please inquire.
Polaroids hold a special place in the hearts of many, artists included. Even Andy Warhol, who championed mechanical reproduction editioning methods of the times, was not immune to their charms. While also technically being a method of mechanical reproduction, Polaroid images are unique in that they are just that, unique. Warhol used this medium to prodigiously document himself and others, sometimes seriously and at time comically. From straightforward images of himself wearing clothing emblazoned with his own name to images of himself in a wig in increasingly abstract shapes reminiscent of the portrait studies of Bacon, Polaroids allowed Warhol to make unique objects from a ready made device.
Barabara Astman’s I Was Thinking About You… series uses the Polaroid medium in a particularly clever way. In this series, Astman makes self-portraits on Polaroid film, and during it’s development process she feeds the developing print through a typewriter and impresses a short letter to one of her peers into the print. The action interrupts development in these areas and imparts a ghostly impression of the letter written which fades to become less legible as the development process continues. The Polaroids are then re-photographed with a 4x5 camera and enlarged to life size portraits. The end result is a portrait of a memory, slowly fading and incomplete as memories are want to be.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #10, 1977, Gelatin silver print, 7 5/16 × 9 7/16 in. (18.6 × 24 cm). © 2024 Cindy Sherman, courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #21, 1978, Gelatin silver print. © 2024 Cindy Sherman, courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still #43, 1979, Gelatin silver print. © 2024 Cindy Sherman, courtesy of the artist and Metro Pictures, New York.
Cindy Sherman, Untitled #477, 2008, Colour photograph, 164 x 147 cm. Courtesy the artist; Metro Pictures, New York, and Sprüth Magers, Berlin & London.
Images from the “Cindy Sherman” exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.
Of course no discussion of photographic self portraits is complete without the icon works of Cindy Sherman. Her Untitled Film Stills series finds her embodying film noir and Hollywood B movie actresses of the 50’s and 60’s in their own iconic but inscrutable narrative. For decades, has engaged with question of identity through images whose categorization as self-portraits is uncertain. Are these images self-portraits of Sherman in costume or are they portraits of the characters that she embodies? The answer is likely somewhere in-between, questioning the reality and authenticity of the what the medium of photography is capable of representing.
UPCOMING EXHIBITION
GROUP SHOW
Opening Wednesday, August 28th, 2024
Rodney Graham, Grand Piano, Collage on paper, 8.25 x 11.5 in.
Yorumlar