Talk - Laurence Lerner

“The history of self-portraits goes back to the late Middle Ages”, says Professor Laurence Lerner, when I ask him to give me a brief introduction to his forthcoming lecture, ‘Portraits of the Artist’. “So I will be going through some of that history, and addressing questions like, why do artists paint themselves? Who does it the most? And I will be illustrating it with well-known self-portraits from the likes of Van Gogh and Rembrandt.”

So why do artists paint themselves, then? “Well you’ll have to come and see it”, he laughs. Just a hint? “Well, alright. First I’ll be talking about the earliest use as a sort of signature - a way of marking ownership. Then I’ll be talking about the practice as a form of self-advertisement. It’s a way of showing what you can do or what kind of painter you are - which leads into the issue of whether a painter idealises themselves or not. Thirdly I’ll talk about it as a form of self-exploration, how particularly the Romantics used it as a means of exploring the self. I’ll also talk about the mirror problem, the technical complications that arise out of the fact that you don’t see yourself quite accurately in a reflection. Finally I’ll talk about some of the most prolific self-portrait painters like Rembrandt, Van Gogh and Egon Schiele.” Anything else? “Oh, I’ll also talk about a number of self-portraits by women artists - and how their rarity relates to history and politics.” ER