Seeing Ourselves: Women’s Self-portraits
A book that began as a passion. For years I collected copies of self portraits by women artists. One day when I opened the drawer that held them , I realised that I had over a hundred, dating back to the sixteenth century. It was inevitable that I would ask if the social pressures on women had dictated their depictions of themselves. What I found was fascinating. Forbidden by the conventions of past centuries to boast about themselves, to work in fields that were seen as exclusively male, and expected to know their place and to be forever feminine, they still managed to speak about their artistic convictions, to hold on to their femininity, and yes, to boast about themselves by exploiting the language of self portraiture to their advantage.
‘One of the intriguing pleasures of this book is that it shows female artists from the sixteenth century onwards manipulating their own images as knowingly and skilfully as any modern spin-doctor, and often with more cheek.’ Jan Dalley, The Observer, March 8, 1998
‘The book is beautifully presented and invites us to consider women’s self-portraiture as a genre in its own right, acknowledging what it has in common with, and what sets it apart from, the self-portraiture of male artists.’ Belinda Thompson, Times Literary Supplement, Nov.13 1998