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| Stanley Spencer Self-portrait 1914 oil on canvas Tate, London |
"This is Spencer's first self-portrait in oils. In its dark and rich colour harmonies and its strongly modelled form, the painting attempts to emulate the style of Old Master painting. Spencer recalled that he was inspired to paint it in this manner after seeing a reproduction of a head of Christ by an Italian Renaissance artist called Luini. The portrait was painted in the front bedroom of Spencer's family home, Fernlea, at Cookham, Berkshire."
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| Stanley Spencer Self-portrait 1959 oil on canvas Tate, London |
"This is Spencer's final self-portrait and one of his last paintings. In December 1958 he discovered that he was suffering from cancer and underwent an operation. Unfortunately the malignancy was not excised and Spencer died on 14 December 1959. Five months before his death he stayed with friends in Yorkshire where he painted this portrait. Although seriously ill he finished the picture in five days, in the drawing room of the house, using a bedroom mirror."
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| Isaac Rosenberg Self-portrait 1911 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| André Derain Madame Derain in a White Shawl ca. 1919-20 oil on canvas Tate, London |
"In this portrait of his wife Alice, Derain has adopted some of the compositional and stylistic devices of early Italian Renaissance art, which he greatly admired. The space inside the image is flattened and outline is emphasised at the expense of volume. The figure appears stiff and immobile, her face an impassive and generalised mask. At the same time, the stark contrast of the white shawl against the black dress can be seen as reflecting Derain's philosophical interest in the relationship of the spiritual and material worlds, symbolised for him by light and dark."
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| Lady Edna Clarke Hall Justin reading (the artist's son) 1932 watercolor Tate, London |
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| Christopher Nevinson Self-portrait 1911 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| David Bomberg Self-portrait 1932 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| Walter Sickert Variation on Peggy 1934-35 oil on canvas Tate, London |
"Sickert had used photographs as source material since the 1890s, but it was not until the 1930s that their use became a routine part of his practice. The image for Variation on Peggy was taken from a black and white photograph of Peggy Ashcroft (1907-1991), the classical actress, on holiday in Venice, which was published in the Radio Times. She is seen against the parapet wall of the Accademia Bridge with the Grand Canal behind, and the domes of the Church of Santa Maria della Salute visible above her head. . . . Though the theatre had been an important subject matter in Sickert's work since the late 1880s, it was only in the mid 1920s that he began to paint large scale portraits of leading actors and actresses on and off the stage. Ashcroft's performance next to Paul Robeson in Ellen Van Volkenburg's 1930 production of Othello had brought the actress to prominence. Variation on Peggy is one of at least fifteen paintings by Sickert of her."
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| André Fougeron Return from the Market 1953 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| John Minton Portrait of Kevin Maybury 1956 oil on canvas Tate, London |
"In April 1956 John Minton left the Painting School of the Royal College of Art, London, where he had taught since 1948, for one year's unpaid leave. His departure had been precipitated by a crisis of confidence in his own ability as a painter and teacher, and profound doubts about the relevance of painting in the modern world. Shortly after leaving the college he accepted a commission to design stage sets for two productions at The Royal Court Theatre, London, Don Juan and The Death of Satan, both written by Ronald Duncan. While working at the theatre, Minton met Kevin Maybury, an Australian carpenter, who was working in the scenery department. A relationship developed and by the winter Maybury had moved into 9 Apollo Place, Minton's house in Chelsea. . . . Although Minton made several drawings of Maybury, this is the only painting he is known to have done of him. The portrait, which was probably painted at Apollo Place or at the workshop in The Royal Court during the summer of 1956, shows Maybury surrounded by the tools of his trade: at his feet are a saw and a set square, in his hands a collapsible ruler, and behind him a step ladder. The angularity of these tools adds to the profusion of geometric forms that dominate the painting. . . . In the midst of this elaborate spatial arrangement is the informally dressed and posed figure of Maybury. Frances Spalding has suggested that he appears to be imprisoned within the matrix of geometrical shapes. She argues that this, with the spatial irregularities of the painting, creates a 'brittle unease' reminiscent of Alberto Giacometti's postwar figure paintings. Maybury's averted gaze seems to support this reading."
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| Leon Kossoff Self-portrait ca. 1952 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| John Ward The Newspaper Boys 1960 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| Gerhard Richter Brigid Polk (305) 1971 oil on canvas Tate, London |
"In 1971 Richter produced five portraits using photographs of Polk, following his established practice of producing paintings from photographic sources including clippings from newspapers and other publications, amateur shots from various sources, and his own photographs. Of this technique, which the artist first used in 1962, Richter has said: In a sense this is a stylistic problem, the form is naturalistic, even though the photograph is not nature at all but a prefabricated product. I do not have to intervene artistically with style, since the stylization (deformation in form and colour) contributes only under very particular circumstances toward clarifying and intensifying an object or a subject (generally stylization becomes the central problem which obscures everything else), it leads to an unmotivated artificiality, an untouchable formalist taboo."
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| Graham Sutherland Lord Goodman 1973-74 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| Sylvia Sleigh Paul Rosano Reclining 1974 oil on canvas Tate, London |
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| Richard Hamilton Four Self-Portraits 05.3.81 1990 oil and enamel on cibachrome print, mounted on four canvases Tate, London |
"Richard Hamilton was a key figure in the British and international Pop Art movement, as well as being one of its main theoreticians. The majority of his work is concerned with the art historical traditions in contemporary art. Four Self-Portraits 05.3.81 takes portraiture as its starting point. . . . In the early 1980s, the artist took Polaroids of himself, and added layers of acrylic colour. After ten years, he digitally converted the photos into transparencies to be made into enlarged prints."
– all quoted passages based on notes by curators at the Tate in London