Who Are They? Who Am I? Portraits of Artists and Artist Self-Portraits from the Permanent Collection

Who Are They? Who Am I?

Portraits of Artists and Artist Self-Portraits

from the Permanent Collection

June 9 – October 7, 2023

Who Are They? Who Am I? is an expansive exhibition drawn from the museum’s collection of portraits and self-portraits of and by a wide range of artists. These include stage and screen actors, authors, composers, dancers, fashion designers, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists from the seventeenth to twenty-first centuries depicted in a variety of media including paintings, drawings, photographs, sculptures, and prints. Artworks vary from highly resolved formal sittings, to informal and intimate sketches, to conceptual portraits. They are insightful, revealing information about the artists’ choices of a variety of visual approaches to capture the subjects’ appearance, mood, and character. They also contain elements indicative of their time and environment, and sometimes even tell stories.

Who Are They?
Often artists depict other artists, revealing their relationships to one another and hinting at larger aspects of artists’ connections, communities, and influences. Some works in this category listed by artist/subject include:

Who Am I?
In self-portraits, artists are often drawing out autobiographical or psychological aspects of themselves others might not depict. Artists this category include:

The majority of works in Who Are They? Who Am I? are in the collection because of the
generosity of our donors–either as direct gifts or as acquisitions made with endowment funds.
The Museum of Art is deeply grateful to the many donors who recognize the value of the
museum and its collection.

To read the biography of each artist and subject in the show, click here.