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Self Portrait

See also : Self portrait II  Women artists  Man and woman  Music and dance  Van Gogh  Picasso < 1907  Central and South Americss  Mexico  Bacon 1963-70  Later Bacons  Head triptych  Later Warhols
Chronology : 1880-1889  1889  1905  1940-1949  1949  1964  1969   1970  1979  1986

1889 Self Portrait without Beard by Van Gogh
1998 SOLD for $ 71.5M including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2020

Van Gogh is interned in Saint-Rémy since May 8, 1889. Two months later a lull in his health condition allows an escorted visit to Arles. Unhappy with missed appointments, he has a dementia attack on July 16.

The crisis is severe. Vincent does not go out any more and cannot resume his brushes before the end of August. Through the window, he sees a free man, the only free man who passes in his angle of vision, a peasant with his horse and his plow. Laboureur dans un champ, oil on canvas 50 x 65 cm, was sold for $ 81M including premium by Christie's on November 13, 2017.

Once again he feels a frantic urge to paint, as an antidote to his illness. Concerned also by the visible signs of madness on his face, he makes three self-portraits in bust, from the left side to hide the right ear.

On two of them, he is bearded. The background is decorated with swirls in his new signature style. On the portrait which is preserved in the Museum of Oslo, perhaps the earliest in this small series, the biased gaze is incontestably psychotic. About the painting that is currently in the Musée d'Orsay, he writes to Theo with a remarkable lucidity that his face is calm but that some distress remains in his gaze.

The other self-portrait is different. He painted it to make a birthday present to his mother, who turns 70 on September 10, 1889. To appear still young and healthy, the face is without beard, which does not mean that it corresponded to reality : a beardless man was not in the fashion of the time. He also wanted to make his caregivers and Theo believe that he felt cured.

This Portrait de l'artiste sans barbe, oil on canvas 65 x 54 cm, was sold for $ 71.5M including premium by Christie's on November 19, 1998 over a lower estimate of $ 20M. The image is shared by Wikimedia.

Vincent Willem van Gogh 102
Self Portrait 2nd page
Van Gogh
Decade 1880-1889
1889

1901 Yo Picasso
1989 SOLD for $ 48 M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020

Pablo Ruiz Picasso is attracted to the bohemian life. He goes to the 4 Gats cabaret in Barcelona and shares a workshop with Carlos Casagemas from January to September 1900. That name of 4 Gats is a reference to the Chat Noir in Montmartre. The two friends explore Paris in October 1900. It is indeed the ideal city for a career as a painter.

Carlos is the first to return to Paris, in January 1901. He commits suicide on February 17.

A highly creative period begins for Pablo. In May, the success of an exhibition of his pastels in Barcelona stirs his ambition. He returns to Paris at the end of May.

The skills of the young man is already evident. He will have a solo exhibition at the Galerie Vollard from June 24. He wants to show his know-how in its whole extent and frantically prepares paintings on various themes: scenes of cabaret and of horse racing, landscapes, flowers, naked women.

He is ready. His father's name, Ruiz, is too common for his exuberant ambition. He removes it from his signature to become Picasso.

The exhibition at Vollard's is dominated by a half-length self-portrait in front of his easel, unequivocally marking the artist's desire to be known and recognized. The attitude is proud, the gaze is intense and the colors are vivid. He will later write a title on this painting, Yo Picasso, confirming his own insolence. He may be forgiven : he was not yet 20 years old.

No, decidedly, four months after the death of Casagemas, there was no precursor of the blue period. Picasso's deep depression began around the middle of 1901. Picasso would later attribute it to the mourning of his friend, which nevertheless considerably disturbed him, without ever revealing the real cause of its outbreak. A rejected love?

Yo Picasso, oil on canvas 74 x 60 cm, was sold for $ 48M including premium by Sotheby's on May 9, 1989.

Picasso before 1907

1905 Au Lapin Agile by Picasso
1989 SOLD for $ 41M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020

Cabarets had a preponderant place in Picasso's youth. It is indeed at the 4 Gats in Barcelona that he feels the desire to have a bohemian life in Montmartre.

Le Lapin Agile is perfectly located in the heart of Montmartre, rue des Saules. Before 1900 its reputation had been sordid. Its name is a pun on the sign created by the cartoonist André Gill showing a happy rabbit jumping out of a pan.

Picasso arrives in Paris at the time when a new steward nicknamed Frédé organizes evenings in this cabaret during which poets, comedians and artists from Montmartre play music, sing, recite poems, chat with conviviality. Frédé plays guitar and cello.

Au Lapin Agile is an oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm painted by Picasso in 1905 on a commission from Frédé. Pablo prepares it in the graphic style of Toulouse-Lautrec's posters, without any style link either with the blue period or with the pink period. It was sold for $ 41M including premium by Sotheby's on November 27, 1989.

The couple in the foreground, seated in front of glasses of wine, is made up of Picasso dressed as a Harlequin and of Germaine, the woman who had rejected Casagemas but was probably Pablo's mistress throughout the blue period. Behind them, Frédé plays the guitar.

Picasso's painting hung on the wall of the cabaret until 1912. It was therefore a silent witness of the most famous hoax in the history of art.

In 1910 on the cabaret terrace, the writer Roland Dorgelès accompanied by an accomplice attaches brushes to the tail of Lolo, Frédé's donkey. In the presence of a bailiff, they dip the brushes in pots of orange, yellow, red and blue paint and offer the animal a carrot. The frantic movement of the tail creates on a 54 x 81 cm canvas the masterpiece titled
Et le Soleil s'endormit sur l'Adriatique, signed J.R. Boronali, an anagram of Buridan's famous donkey, Aliboron.

They exhibit this Sunset at the Salon des Indépendants as a manifesto of the Excessivisme. The fruitful debates that the hoax has aroused about the meaning of art are thus a direct consequence of the artists' meetings at the Lapin Agile. Picasso's painting is a rare rendering of this environment.

Music and Dance in Art
1905

​1949 Diego y yo by Kahlo
2021 SOLD for $ 35M by Sotheby's

Frida Kahlo suffered a lifelong intense pain in her back after an accident. She courageously faced her condition by her art and by her quest for a passion out of the ordinary, including political commitment and bisexuality. She found her partner, unfaithful husband and accomplice in the Communist artist Diego Rivera, 20 years older than her.

Kahlo's art is made of metaphors and symbols with a high poetry. A friend of the Surrealists, she nevertheless insisted to state that she was not representing her dreams but her reality. 55 of her ca 143 paintings are self portraits.

Eager to exchange an empathy, she often made and inscribed self portraits for friends : Trotsky, her doctors. On November 16, 2021, Sotheby's sold such a self portrait for $ 35M, lot 12. This oil on masonite 30 x 22 cm painted in 1949 is dedicated to Florence and Sam, a couple of friends who were instrumental in promoting her art. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.

The piece was titled Diego y yo by the artist. It displays the portrait in bust of Diego Rivera on the forehead, fully centered between eyebrows and hair. This figure has at the same place the third eye of wisdom. The intimate theme of this self portrait is indeed her obsession for Diego. Three tears flow on her cheeks.

A self portrait executed in 1954, the year of her untimely death, is in the same inspiration, with the image of Diego on the breast and of her rival Maria between the eyebrows.
Man and Woman
Women Artists
Central and South Americas
Mexico
DEcade 1940-1949
1949

1964 Andy's Square Quad
2011 SOLD 38.4 M$ including premium

Mrs. Florence Barron loved art and wanted to own a work by Andy Warhol. It happened in 1963 or 1964. The artist already knew fame after the success of his first exhibitions. The negotiated price was $ 1,600.

Andy proposed to portray his client but she was not narcissistic and preferred to invite the artist to realize his self-portrait. He accepted.

He showed his image in four poses inspired by the cheap photos supplied by coin operated booths. Top left and bottom right, he is wise, like on a passport. Of the other two, he raises his head as trying to escape the frame.

This acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas painted in various shades of blue, overall size 102 x 84 cm, dated 1964, remained for years hung in the Barron living room in Detroit. It had never gone on the market, and is now on sale at Christie's in New York on May 11, with an estimate of $ 20M. The artwork is illustrated on the Reuters release shared by Artdaily.

This quadruple image of an ordinary and expressionless young man in trench coat and tie, his eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, is not unknown.

On May 10, 2006, Sotheby's sold $ 1.8 million including premium another copy of the position at the top left, 47 x 39 cm, also blue. The catalog stated that nine single-image paintings in this series were known (I assume that this figure does not include the four of the Barron collection).

They have also been published in the late 1970s.

POST SALE COMMENT

Rarity, subject, and also the story about the creation of this multiple make it one of the most remarkable artworks by Warhol. In addition, it was fresh on the market. It was sold for $ 38.4 million including premium.
1964

1969 Self Portrait by Bacon
2007 SOLD for $ 33M by Sotheby's

In 1969 Francis Bacon is 60 years old. His Soho friends are also aging. He looks at himself, once again.

A painting featuring him with a sad gaze is important for him, as evidenced by its simple title Self Portrait without the frequent "Study for ..." that he uses when a work belongs to a series or an intended series.

This oil on canvas 35 x 45 cm was sold for $ 33M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2007, lot 19.
1969

1970 The Equation of Time of Francis Bacon
​2016 SOLD for $ 35M including premium

Francis Bacon often undertook to explain his art, with passion. He is a painter, viscerally, and would not consider any other occupation.

Like his fellow Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon desires to express life. Their methods are nevertheless in total opposition. Francis does not wish to compose an image : he seeks the spontaneity. He does not inspect the model on live but is working from photographs. Each personality is complex and a single image is not enough : this is the root cause of the choice of the artist to make triptychs and, less frequently, diptychs.

In 1969, Francis Bacon paints from three instantaneous photos the portrait in triptych of Lucian Freud, which was sold for $ 142M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2013. Francis is 60 years old. His quest for immediacy is already accompanied by the anxiety on his inability to stop his own aging.

In real life, he takes fun at the expense of George Dyer but his Soho friends have also aged. Henrietta is increasingly ugly. A surprising portrait on which the woman is slipping away backwards from the picture frame remained unsold at Christie's on October 19, 2008. Francis looks again at his own face. A self-portrait with a sad gaze, 35 x 40 cm, was sold for $ 33M including premium by Sotheby's on 14 November 2007.

In 1970, Francis is desperately seeking a solution to his equation of time. He paints less and less because his old themes are no longer acceptable to him. He executes a self-portrait in diptych 35 x 30 cm per element. His attire is relaxed but the position of the head is haughty : Francis is alone in front of himself. The exuberant expressionist colors accentuate the total control of his art.

Titled Two studies for a self portrait, this work is estimated $ 22M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on May 11, lot 8. I invite you to watch the video shared by the auction house. The optimistic interpretation made by Sotheby's may be questioned but their conclusion that it is the finest self-portrait by Francis Bacon is highly acceptable.
Bacon 1963-70
1970

1979 Three Studies for Self Portrait by Bacon
2022 SOLD for $ 29M by Christie's

Mortality is a thread line in the art of Francis Bacon. Early felt as a challenge, it became a personal tragedy after the untimely death of his love partners, Peter in 1962 and George in 1971. He painted no less than 29 self portraits in the 1970s. In 1979 the death of the club owner Muriel Belcher at 71 years old marks a termination of the feeling of good life in Soho.

Turning 70 in the same year, Francis feels of himself like a survivor, more than ever looking for the ravage of time on his own face.

This sad mood is reflected in a triptych again titled Three Studies for a Self Portrait painted in 1979, sold for $ 29M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 52.

These three faces bears marks of aging through patches of pink and blue over the pale flesh. The blazing orange background is a reminder of his first masterpiece in triptych, the 1944 Three studies of figures at the base of a crucifixion.
Later Bacons
Head Triptych
1979

1986 Fright Wig by WARHOL
​Intro

Andy Warhol was a devout Catholic. His multiplication of identical pictures of Marilyn throughout his career and of Mao in 1972 and 1973 may be interpreted as an attempt to have some of his images becoming as recognizable as Christ on the cross.

In the 1960s Andy also processed his self-portraits as a shy man half hidden in the shadow to observe the world.

His mystical preaching restarts in 1986 with his remakes of Leonardo's Last Supper, in whole or limited to details. He gets an intuition that the exemplary character that he has long sought in the modern world is indeed himself in the like of a mad man. Warhol is no longer human, he is being transformed by himself into a half-god of contemporary art.

He is already 58 years old and his face is aging. He greatly exaggerates his physical decline with a shaggy wig, his head cut under the chin, haggard eyes and an open mouth that are turning his head into a hollowed mask on a black background. The lines of the face are wasted as if they announced the next transformation of the artist into a skeleton.

This unconventional disembodied head offsets the expectations of well-thinking people in the same power as, many years before, the famous photo of Einstein sticking out his tongue.


Reusing the technique of his early masterpieces he paints this unique view in acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas by multiplying sizes and colors. The largest format in the Fright Wig series is 270 x 270 cm, used in seven canvases.

Andy Warhol died unexpectedly in February 1987, seven months after the exhibition of that ultimate premonitory series of selfies at the Anthony d'Offay gallery in London. 
​

​1
Purple
2010 SOLD for $ 32.5M by Sotheby's

Five paintings in color were executed simultaneously in the largest format from the series, 270 x 270 cm, showing the same image respectively in green, blue, purple, yellow and red.

The purple painting was sold for $ 32.5M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2010. Its color is sinister and mesmerizing. The press release and image of the lot are shared by AuctionPublicity.

The terrible red Warhol, in same size, was sold for $ 27.5M by Christie's on May 11, 2011. The image is shared by Art Market Monitor.

On November 17, 2016, Sotheby's sold for $ 24.4M a white version 203 x 193 cm of the 1986 self portrait, lot 38.
later warhols
1986

2
Set of Six Small Size
2014 SOLD for $ 30M by Sotheby's

Andy prepared the Fright Wig seriec in various sizes and colors from a single image, as he had done before for his series of celebrities and for the flowers. For that ultimate series, the smallest versions were intended to be kept in a sequence of hanging strictly defined by the artist.

A set of six acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas 56 x 56 cm was sold for $ 30M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014, 
lot 23. It had been illustrated by Sotheby's in a pre sale video. Still complete from its original configuration it was sold for £ 22.6M by Christie's on March 6, 2018, lot 9.

A set of three mid-size 102 x 102 cm each was sold for £ 11.5M by Sotheby's on February 27, 2008.
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