Self Portrait: Renaissance to Contemporary: National Portrait Gallery's Self Portrait Exhibition

The National Portrait Gallery's Self Portrait Exhibition is an ambitious exploration of the self-portrait from its inception in the early fifteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first century. A highlight of the Ruth Borchard Collection,  Francis Newton Souza's  self portrait was included in the National Portrait Gallery’s significant exhibition spanning self portraiture in art, particularly oil paintings, from the Renaissance up to Contemporary art. The painting also featured in the publication to accompany the exhibition with essays by T. J. Clark, Ludmilla Jordanova and Joseph Leo Koerner.

The artist once stood before a canvas and gazed into a mirror; we, in turn, stand before the canvas looking at what the artist saw in the mirror. For a moment, time and space are collapsed and we find a reflection of ourselves in the artist's eyes. 

With 140 self portraits from all over the world the exhibition explored how artists have constructed their identity, setting the scene for their life and times and above all showing themselves as creative individuals, often captured in the act of conjuring their own image in the studio.