self-portrait
Americannoun
-
self-portraits
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
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
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“It’s both a self-portrait and a mirror in which a singular perspective can reach out to so many.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 15, 2026
The final sections of the research consider whether modern descendants share physical similarities with Leonardo's famous self-portrait.
From Science Daily ● May 4, 2026
The exhibition contains a self-portrait in this larger format, but it doesn’t have the concentrated punch and mystery that the standard Polaroids—requiring the viewer to lean in and peer—have in abundance.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 25, 2026
A self-portrait created during that time, which now hangs in the Tate Britain, so impressed her tutor Frederick Brown that he bought it and it hung in his home.
From BBC ● Feb. 7, 2026
Vincent's self-portrait reflects how he feels about himself, that he has “something of a dual nature, something of both the monk and the painter.”
From "Vincent and Theo: The Van Gogh Brothers" by Deborah Heiligman
Last year, one of Kahlo’s self-portraits sold at auction in New York for $55 million — a record for a woman and a Latin American artist.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 14, 2026
It’s a dazzling assembly of portraits and self-portraits, scenes of everyday life, and the occasional religious or mythological theme.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 25, 2025
Think of these eccentric beards as Therrien’s self-portraits.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 25, 2025
The MFA assembled 14 of these, contextualized by self-portraits, Japanese prints, works by artists Van Gogh admired, and paintings by Paul Gauguin, who joined his friend in the south toward the end of 1888.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 25, 2025
A group of guys coughed “Sandra” discreetly every time Frida’s self-portraits were projected onto the screen.
From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
