Sunday, November 30, 2008

Who Should Do Your Portrait?

Some days ago, several of us art historical types got onto the topic of who, in the entire known history of art, we might like to have do our portraits. This is a fairly complex question since it isn't really about which artists we like, although that comes into it to some extent. It's possible to admire an artist considerably without having any real desire to have that person do one's portrait; it's also possible to think a given artist would do an interesting portrait but not think one would really care to put such portraits on the top of the wish-list. The initial group of us tended, for example, to think that Alice Neel, Andy Warhol, George Grosz, and Otto Dix were not exactly high on our lists even though we would not turn them down should they ask to portray us.
Alice Neel, Portrait of Joe Gould, 1933

Andy Warhol, Marilyn Monroe, 1967

George Grosz, The Engineer Heartfield, 1920

Otto Dix, Sylvia von Harden, 1920s
I'll be posting some responses on artists people would like to be portrayed by, but in the meantime I think we will start close to home.

Calypso Spots thinks she would like to be painted by Beatrix Potter despite the fact that Potter doesn't seem to have done any lops or spotted rabbits.

Orion thinks he would be better served by Albrecht Dürer.

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