Artist’s Portraits

The editor of the RA Magazine for winter 2021 has asked contributors to nominate their favourite depictions of artists.  Five have chosen works by photographers.

Gabriella Boyd: Nan Goldin’s Ballad of Sexual Dependency is a record of a 15-year period of her life.  Brimming with love and brutal honesty, it captures her struggle for intimacy.

Phoebe Cummings: The photograph Image from Yagul, 1973, both of and by Ana Mendieta, covered in flowers.  She still defies categorisation.

Vanessa Jackson: Claude Cahun’s double-headed self-portrait from 1929, titled Que me veux-tu? or ‘What do you want from me.’

Alastair Levy: A photograph from 1924 titled Marcel Duchamp with Shaving Lather, by Man Ray.  A gloriously playful and perfectly deadpan depiction of the artist by his close friend.

Cathie Pilkington: When I first saw Robert Mapplethorpe’s 1982 portrait of Louise Bourgeois I thought, yes, that’s what women sculptors have to do: live a long time, make tons of work, tuck a giant penis under your arm, grin.

Nan Goldin, Ballad of Sexual Dependency, c.1985
Ana Mendieta, Image from Yagul, 1973
Claude Cahun, ‘Que me veux-tu? 1929
Man Ray, Marcel Duchamp with Shaving Lather, 1924
Robert Mapplethorpe, Louise Bourgeois, 1982
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