self-portrait

American  

[self-pawr-trit, -treyt, -pohr-, self-] / ˌsɛlfˈpɔr trɪt, -treɪt, -ˈpoʊr-, ˈsɛlf- /

noun

1. a portrait of oneself done by oneself.

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self-portrait British  

noun

1. a portrait one draws or paints of oneself

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Etymology

Origin of self-portrait

First recorded in 1830–40

Explanation

If you draw a picture of yourself, it's a self-portrait. Vincent van Gogh was well-known for his many self-portraits, painting more than 40 of them over the course of a few years. Whenever an artist creates a portrait of herself, whatever medium she uses, the result is a self-portrait. A six year-old can draw a self-portrait in crayon, and a famous sculptor can sculpt one out of clay. In the mid-15th century, Early Renaissance painters were the first to focus on creating deliberate self-portraits; this was probably due partly to the fact that mirrors had just recently become affordable and fairly easy to find.

Example Sentences

“There’s an open invitation to interpret it as there is with any of his artwork — because I do view the diaries as another self portrait in his oeuvre.”

From New York Times • Mar. 25, 2022

It might take a few tries, but you can time your self portrait to capture a plane flying low overhead at this stretch of park along the Potomac River near Reagan National Airport.

From Washington Post • Jan. 4, 2022

There’s a romanticism in the full-bleed images of Aldrin’s space-walk self portrait backdropped by the azure arc of Earth’s oceans, or the crew of Apollo 1 testing their space suits in a Texas swimming pool.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 14, 2019

It was a thank you present, a self portrait, which the doctor and his wife sold after Bacon’s death for £350,000.

From The Guardian • Jun. 24, 2016

Her first, the self portrait Bubbles, has sold 130,000 copies in hardcover and many times that figure in paperback since it came out a year ago.

From 100 New Yorkers of the 1970s by Millard, Max