I am here!

This self-portrait, created when the artist was just eighteen, is the earliest known work by Louis Janmot. It was painted shortly after his admission to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon and earned him first prize in the school’s competition. The young painter holds the palette and brush as if he is about to set to work on the very painting we see before us. His determined face betrays the great ambitions he envisions for his chosen career. The picture is striking for the artist’s penetrating gaze which seems to evoke the idea, popular among the Romantics, of artistic genius arising from the depths of the self.

Annie Lennox is one of Britain’s most famous singer-songwriters and social activists and has been portrayed as such in countless photographs and films. This photograph is a reference to the self-portrait Lennox chose as the cover of her third solo album, Bare (2003). The two ageless, gender-neutral, and racially ambiguous images were made in cooperation with her partner, the graphic designer Allan Martin.

Andy Warhol is an iconic figure and his portrait is as legendary today as his art. He was preoccupied with his appearance throughout his lifetime and the silver wig became an integral part of his identity from the early sixties. After he had established himself as a successful Pop artist, self-portraits became increasingly important in his later oeuvre. His portraits from the sixties are based on pictures from photo booths that were enlarged, transformed into silk-screen prints and then transferred to canvas. When he began to work with Polaroids again twenty years later, a series emerged that he also reproduced as paintings. These four self-portraits demonstrate the significance that role-play and the wearing of different wigs and make-up had for the artist. If he were still alive today, he would no doubt be the king of the selfie.

Anselm Feuerbach cultivated a personality cult that bordered on the insufferable and which was reflected in a profusion of self-portraits. Here the young Feuerbach draws inspiration from the painting techniques of Rembrandt, whose self-portraits he had studied closely. To achieve his penetrating gaze, Feuerbach often checked his physiognomy in a mirror. This portrait is a document both of self-scrutiny and self-posturing, with theatrical lighting that almost demonizes his aspect. It is what art-historians term a ‘formula of pathos’ that allows the artist, not shy of announcing his genius, to show his personality in just the right light – gas light, in this case.

Simon Vouet’s self-portrait effervesces with vitality. The carefully modelled face, with its finely executed shadows beneath the eyes and the slightly opened mouth, radiates great intensity. The painter’s presence is intensified by dispensing with a depiction of the body. Clothing and surroundings are merely hinted at. It is uncertain whether the painting was created during Vouet’s 15-year stay in Italy or once back in France. The painter returned in 1627. He was named court painter to Ludwig XIII in the same year and executed numerous prestigious commissions in the years thereafter.

Hans Thoma’s self-portrait is a direct reference to Self-portrait with Death Playing the Fiddle made by his friend Arnold Böcklin (Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin) in 1872. The message, however, has been clearly altered in Thoma’s work: the laurel wreath as an attribute of death raises the question of whether an artist’s fame can survive after he has died. The fact that the winged cherub bears a resemblance to Thoma’s later wife Cella Bertenender, whom he had just met, turns the demonic melodrama of Böcklin’s work into something positive. The painter portrays himself positioned between a small child and a skeleton, between life and death, but still with the certainty that ‘amor vincit omnia’—love conquers all.

There are a great many self-portraits by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner from all phases of his work. This linocut is an example of his mixed-style phase, during which he attempted to unify various different influences. With its almost two-dimensional simplicity, it is reminiscent of a paper cut-out. The delicate, luminescent watercolours are characteristic of this period, creating areas of green through the overprinting of yellow and blue. Kirchner produced relatively few impressions of his coloured prints: he wanted to emphasize their uniqueness, as for him they existed on a par with his paintings. During the years of the First World War, Kirchner went through a deep crisis. Bouts of anxiety and medicinal drug addictions caused an increasing fear of losing his creativity, a trauma that he also made into a theme in his self-portrayals. This canvas depicts him in the act of painting in the narrow living room in his home in the Swiss town of Davos, to which he had withdrawn in the hope of making a recovery, and where he lived until his suicide in 1938.

This painting is regarded as a central work by Antoine Duclaux. It was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1824 and literally became the manifesto of the young Lyon School. At the centre of the painting can be seen Duclaux’s mentor Fleury Richard, wearing a top hat, who at the time had been dismissed from his professorship at the École des beaux-arts de Lyon in consequence of an intrigue by his rival Pierre Révoil. Gathered around him are his most successful pupils, whom art critics had termed the “Lyon School” since 1819. Assembled from left to right are: the sculptor Jean François Legendre-Héral and the painters Augustin Thierriat, Michel Genod, Anthelme Trimolet, Jean Marie Jacomin, Étienne Rey, Claude Bonnefond and Hector Reverchon.

Gustave Courbet made about twenty self-portraits in the period between 1842 and 1855. They gave the artist the opportunity to create a setting and construct a specific image of himself: at first, still under the influence of Romanticism, as a lonely, misunderstood genius and later as a provincial painter who cares little for social customs. The self-portrait on display here shows the painter in the company of his lover Virginie Binet who left him in 1852. Courbet only gave the work the title The Lovers in the Countryside in 1855, no doubt a deliberate allusion to his earlier happiness.

It would seem logical to assume that Rembrandt’s blatantly gloomy disposition in this self-portrait is tied to events in his private life, for it was created around the time of the death of his beloved wife, Saskia, in 1642, a period of personal and creative crisis. Yet for Rembrandt, the work was not intended to be an analysis of the self. His aim was rather to paint a captivating piece of art that would attract a buyer. Self-portraits in the seventeenth century were not personal. After completion, they were quickly sold on to wealthy patrons. The emotions in Rembrandt’s self-portraits are acted and even his clothing is part of a staged scene, as if he were playing a role in the theatre. This self-portrait is rightly considered a masterpiece and is perfect for the study of Rembrandt’s extraordinary painting style, with different areas of the same work executed in a variety of techniques: while the face, despite the use of impasto, is very precisely and finely modelled, his robe is more sketchily painted, giving an unfinished impression.

Jean Carriès was one of the most innovative sculptors of his time. He created numerous fantasy busts in historical dress. The Warrior presumably depicts the artist himself—a kind of imaginary self-portrait with armour and helmet. The work plainly references Spanish art of the 17th century, while the helmet and armour perhaps point to the staged settings and props used by Rembrandt. These allusions, together with the deliberate confusion caused by the self-portrayal and the melancholy gaze counteract the military impression of the work, and an underlying atmosphere of introspection and meditation emerges in its place.

Michel Dumas is one of the many artists from Lyon who started their training in the studio of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. The painter presents himself wearing a typical artist’s cap, but also an elegant robe hardly conceivable as suitable work clothing. In the background we see the verso of a painting. Perhaps it is his best-known work Abraham and Hagar (1838). Scholars suspect this may be the case because the Lyon-born art collector Lodoïx Monnier, Dumas’s most loyal patron, purchased Abraham and Hagar and was also the first owner of this self-portrait.

His arm supported by a portfolio and a palette, Vivien points to the paintbrushes that identify him as a history painter. His gaze directed towards the viewer and the hint of a smile attest to the pride of the painter; he stands with his chest out, underlining his determination. Educated in Paris, Joseph Vivien served as court painter to Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria. At the time this painting was created, the artist was at the pinnacle of his career: in the background, we can see a pre-study for his masterpiece Allegory of Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria Being Reunited with His Family in 1715. The monumental painting, made between 1715 and 1733 (Staatsgalerie Schleißheim), commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Rastatt on 7 March 1714.

There are six other versions of the Ricotta Eaters known in existence, but in all probability only this one was painted by Campi himself. He depicts himself as a jolly philosopher, with his arm crossing the centre of a composition that seems infused with infectious laughter. Campi’s advice to the viewer is to enjoy life’s pleasures, but without expecting too much of them. The holes hollowed out in the ricotta by the spoonful make the soft cheese evocative of a skull, and a fly crawls unnoticed on its surface. This traditional motif of vanitas painting warns of the perils of indulgence and reminds the viewer of the inevitability of death.

Sarah Lucas’s portrayals of men and women are imbued with an irreverent sense of humour and vernacular language that challenge sexual stereotypes and conventional morals. In Self-portrait with Fried Eggs, she adopts a provocative, macho pose. The fried eggs on her breasts are a parody of the usual connotations associated with female (and male) sexual attributes. In Self-portrait with Skull, Lucas’s pose seems to equate sex with death, in this way revealing dark urges not only related to passion but also to self-destruction. In Got a Salmon On #3, she is pictured in front of a public toilet. The slang connotations of the title and huge salmon over her shoulder are an ironic reference to the concept of female erection.

This self-portrait is a tribute to one of the best-known outsiders of modern art: Henri Rousseau, the key representative of ‘naïve art’, whom Byrne greatly admired. Created in the wake of a trip to America, it also reflects Byrne’s fascination with the distinct Californian light and the ‘flower power’ of the time. The numerous, strikingly protean self-portraits which the artist produced over the course of his career suggest a variable and malleable identity. Equally known for his writing, Byrne presents himself in his art in an array of guises and costumes, attitudes and masks, moods and circumstances. The undoubted humorous streak to his poses is also tinged with a tragic element.

During the Second World War, Robert Henderson Blyth spent four years as a medic in the Royal Army Medical Corps in France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. The experiences of this period are reflected in many of his works, which are dominated by dark premonitions and figures frozen in the midst of scenes of devastation and destruction. This self-portrait shows him beset on all sides by a snowy, chaotic landscape. A faceless figure at his back seems to have frozen to death, while the artist himself appears fixed to the spot. The artist’s piercing blue eyes are turned slightly upwards; they stare out at us, involving us directly in the scene.