20th-Century Artist Self-Portraits

With Young Girl, With a Self-Portrait, As a Monk, or With Skeleton

Jan 19, 2008

Self-portraits by French and German artists from the early 20th century feature the modernist sensibility of discontent with traditional European art.

Q. Which artist depicted himself with Fränzi?

A. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

20th-century artist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) co-founded the Expressionist group Die Brücke in Dresden with several of his friends. The term “Die Brücke,” German for “The Bridge,” was not necessarily a specific style but was rather seen by the founders as a bridge toward a visionary art future. The Die Brücke artists lived and worked as a community they fancied as similar to the guilds of the Middle Ages. They typically created abstract work with strong colors and broad shapes.

Fränzi and her sister Marcella were the daughters of a widower who lived in the same neighborhood as Kirchner. Both young girls participated in the life of the Die Brücke group by posing as models for the artists. They were carefree and evidently did not mind the idea of posing naked, which made them perfect subjects for the painters. At the time only twelve years old, Fränzi was (to Kirchner) an embodiment of primal nature, uncorrupted by the rigors or inhibitions of Western civilization, and became the perfect muse for the artist. A human in the rough so to speak, Fränzi’s spirit seemed to convey the same feeling of liberation that Kirchner tried to express in his art.

Kirchner’s self-portrait with Fränzi is currently housed at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg.

Q. Which artist depicted himself with a self-portrait by Emile Bernard?

A. Paul Gauguin

Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French artist from the early-20th-century post-Impressionist period who believed that traditional European painting had become too imitative and lacked mysticism or depth. He developed a primitivistic style that led the way to modern art.

Created in 1888, “Self-Portrait, Les Miserables” currently hangs at the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh in Amsterdam.

Q. Which artist depicted himself as a Japanese?

A. Vincent van Gogh

Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), today often popularly perceived as mad or misunderstood, belonged to the avant-garde art movement of his time. His work may not have been accepted by the public at large, but he had the support of a group of friends and fellow artists and he was supported financially by his brother, Theo, an art dealer.

Gaunt, with cropped hair, Van Gogh portrays himself here as a counterpart to a Japanese bonze, a simple follower of a Japanese Buddhist monk. Van Gogh had hoped that a fellowship of like-minded artists would gather in Arles, France, and he envisioned Paul Gauguin as the head of the group. With “Self-Portrait Dedicated to Paul Gauguin (Bonze)” dedicated to the older painter, Van Gogh expresses his intense desire to follow Gauguin's bold new direction in art. The imagined artists' circle never materialized, but Gauguin came to Arles in the fall of 1888 at Van Gogh’s invitation. For a short time the two artists shared their enthusiasm for new techniques and bright colors, sometimes painting together, until their differences drove them apart.

Created in 1888, this self-portrait by Van Gogh currently hangs at the Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., USA.

Q. What artist depicted himself with a skeleton?

A. Lovis Corinth

Early-20th-century German painter Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) was a prolific producer of self-portraits. This modernist and unconventional self-portrait with a skeleton (1896) is steeped in the natural daylight that fills the artist's studio and is painted with fresh, rapid brushstrokes. Corinth represents himself as a self-confident painter with the steeples and chimneys of Munich in the background as they appeared outside the window of his studio. The skeleton is reduced to a studio prop. The viewer’s attention is drawn to Corinth and his honest rendering of his own impressive physical albeit aging presence.

The self-portrait currently hangs at the Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich.

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