Glossary: Self portraits

I recently bought a fine pencil self portrait by John Bratby RA (1928-1992) drawn around the time when he was finishing his studies at the Royal College of Art in London . It remained in his studio until 1978 when he sent it with other examples of his work to an exhibition at the Vernon Gallery in Preston . It was bought at the exhibition and sold it to me. It’s a very interesting drawing and typical of Bratby’s handling of pencil works in his early days. It has strong, confident lines and has more than a passing resemblance to the works of the Vortacist painters of 50 years before. It also has one very obvious omission; A pair of glasses that the artist habitually wore as he had extremely poor eyesight. Bratby, like many artists before and since was a habitual self portraitist. The act of creating your own likeness is performed for many reasons including vanity, a free and readily available model and introspection by self analysis through the medium of art. From the invention of the mirror artist’s have painted themselves in various guises, Durer with his Christ like pose, Rembrandt through out his life producing 60 known self portraits over 40 years, Van Gogh with 22 versions in 2 manic years and Picasso using imagery rather than a literal likeness to depict himself.

 The one dominating factor is that they are all attempting to grab hold of their identities and show us the viewer, what they want us to see. It is a self examination that looks into their soul and beyond. It is probably best summed up by Vincent Van Gogh in one of his letters to his brother Theo, where he is examining Rembrandt’s self portraits, stating …”it is more than nature, it is a kind of revelation” So where does Bratby’s lovely intimate work position itself. I  see it as a painters picture, executed at the height of his artistic powers, but with that element of human frailty namely vanity.

 And why not!