Self-Portrayal and Self-Representation
eduard vallès
‘I paint as others write their autobiographies. My canvases,
completed or not, are the pages of my diary, and as such
they are valid. The future will choose the pages it prefers.’1
This is precisely what this work is about – choosing an artistic genre from among Picasso’s vast oeuvre and studying it
beyond merely biographical interpretation. Picasso depicted
himself continuously, from his earliest years until shortly
before his death. His self-representational work, however,
was not always well suited to the concept of the self-portrait,
which is used here as a title and a general framework
but which is in fact insufficient to define the extraordinary
complexity of self-portrayal in Picasso’s oeuvre. Our field of
study therefore extends to embrace concept of self-representation, which includes and transcends the self-portrait. We
should, however, avoid easy descriptive readings of his work,
for Picasso’s polysemic and escapist disposition seldom
accepts closed interpretations.
Moreover, the self-portraits do not always have linear
structures – far from it, in fact most of the traditional selfportrayals were made before Les Demoiselles d’Avignon in
1907, on the threshold of Cubism. From then on the selfportrait, strictly speaking, would become a residual, exceptional presence in his oeuvre. The truth is that a canonical
exhibition on the subject should not extend beyond that
year, when Picasso was barely twenty-six. Before 1906 he
was an artist who portrayed himself as a bohemian, a harlequin, resorting to nineteenth-century parameters of representation. To a certain extent his painting on the whole
reproduced patterns that would be eclipsed only by his turn
to the avant-garde during that same period. This would
explain the fact that practically all the self-portraits considered his masterpieces were produced before 1907, when he
made the famous pre-Cubist Self-Portrait (Národní galerie
v Praze). During his Cubist period he abandoned self-portraiture almost completely, cultivating instead photographic
self-portraits. At a given moment what we could call the
‘self’, the ‘represented self’ dissolved, giving way to selfrepresentation. In other words, although he would continue
1. Bernadac and Androula 1998, p. 116.
to produce significant series of traditional self-portraits, his
oeuvre revealed the complexity of an artist who concerned
himself with all the problems and issues confronting twentiethcentury man. The use of the term self-portrait to describe
works produced from the early twenties onwards should
be qualified. The truth is that we often find ourselves before
representations that took his own appearance as a form of
subterfuge. As well as containing self-referential traits, the
portraits in which the old painter has Picasso’s features or
is dressed in a blue-striped T-shirt are in fact experiments
on his image as an artist. Picasso’s memories, dreams and
obsessions, in short, his theatrum mundi, take centre stage
in his prints of the sixties and early seventies in spite of
their imitative Hyperrealism, and his own image becomes
but a complementary feature. Finally, in his stark series of
self-portraits as a dead man, rather than depicting a specific
person he anticipates his own demise focusing on the idea
of physical destruction.
Criteria and method
We have decided to limit our study to the traditional selfportrait, extending our interpretation to several specific
self-representations to ensure that a significant part of his
production was included in the survey. As regards procedure, we have followed a method that is half autobiographical and half formal. Autobiography is indispensable in the
case of Picasso, despite having been methodologically
neglected by a large section of critics. Alter egos such as the
Harlequin or the Minotaur appear as solutions to specific
concerns in the light of which they should be interpreted,
but what is most needed is a formal analysis, basically
because Picasso used his own body, his own face, as a field
of experimentation. However, the biographical element will
not always be decisive, as proven by the self-portraits of the
years 1906–07 and those of 1917–21, which forsake narrative and should be examined from the perspective of contemporary formal research. Picasso’s various Neo-Primitivist
approaches to the face during the years 1906–08 would
culminate in the classicising profiles produced during his
Neo-classical reprise of the period 1917–21.
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We shall use oral and documentary sources with utmost
precaution, for we cannot give credence to all of Picasso’s
statements – even when their origin is confirmed, it is well
known that his spirit of contradiction and his mistrust of
researchers occasionally prompted him to provide misleading or contradictory accounts. After years of exploring the
Picasso universe we have realised that one of the most effective methods of interpretation is in fact the ‘Picassian
method’. Let us explain. Many are the influences that have
been traced in Picasso’s oeuvre (Classicism, Primitivism,
etc.) but one of the most important, despite the seeming
redundancy, is actually ‘Picassoism’. During his mature
years, in an act of withdrawal Picasso revisited himself as
if he were one of the old masters he was reinterpreting at
the time. This is obvious above all in his prints, where we
come across self-portraits in which the artist-cum-spectator
is surrounded by iconographic elements from past periods
such as his Barcelona years or his Blue and Rose periods.
Typologies and techniques
The basic typology we shall be examining is that of the traditional self-portrait made before 1907, when most of his
works in the genre were produced. Subsequent works move
towards self-representation and from then on only a few significant series of self-portraits will appear: those produced
between 1917 and 1921, the prints of his mature years,
particularly those made between 1968 and 1971, and the
self-portraits before death, produced in 1972. We shall also
study several self-representations – the alterity of the Harle­
quin, the Minotaur and the ape – in all their complexity and
mysteriousness, and other self-depictions as shadows and silhouettes. Broadly speaking, we intend to analyse works that
contain realistic references, those that are inextricably
linked to his biography and those of which we have reliable
documentary evidence or else the artist’s own descriptions.
For conceptual reasons and due to lack of space, other projections of Picasso’s personality such as his atelier, the ideograms and signs that appear alongside his portrayals of
couples and lovers, and the vast category of hidden selfportraits, do not fall within our scope. Similarly, the exam32
ples of the artist’s metamorphosing into other identities, into
organic and even inorganic matter, would have expanded our
scope exponentially.
Picasso’s self-portraits often reveal a reversal of personal,
temporal and geographical coordinates. Very often, the artist’s psychological condition and personal circumstances
produce physiognomic changes. A number of authors have
discerned self-projections in his sketches of characters such
as the medicine student or the sailor in the preparatory
studies for the Demoiselles; or the sequential development
that transforms Picasso’s face into that of Casagemas in La
Vie. As regards the temporal dimension, we come across
evocative, anticipatory and even desiderative self-portraits,
none of which are connected to the artist’s present. In his
graphic work he sometimes appears twice in one and the
same print, self-portraits at different ages. On other occasions his self-portraits are projected into the history of art,
as exemplified by the self-parodies in his versions of masterpieces such as Manet’s Olympia and Gauguin’s Manao
Tutupau.
His preferred techniques when it came to the genre were
painting and drawing, although he often chose other media
such as prints, ceramics and even illustrated books. Drawing
prevailed over oil painting, which was more incidental;
among the drawings, his small format self-portraits not
intended for sale but for private recreation are particularly
interesting.
Scope
Both the exhibition and the catalogue follow combined criteria, chronologically and conceptually, although in some
sections one prevails over the other. Given that the main
intention of our survey is to describe an itinerary, a life story
that begins as a child and ends as a ninety-year-old man, a
chronological framework is most appropriate. It is also well
suited to the artist’s intention of presenting his life through
his work, through his self-portraits in particular, as he confessed to his friend and anthologist Christian Zervos: ‘It’s
not what the artist does that counts, but what he is. […]
What interests us is Cézanne’s concern, Cézanne’s lesson,
Van Gogh’s torments – in other words, man’s drama. Every­
thing else is false.’2 Could an essentially autobiographical
oeuvre have a more powerful basis?
The conceptual criterion is applied variously in the different sections of the exhibition. The main themes examined
are the figure of the artist, in his youth and in his prime, and
in connection with his model. His Parisian production of
1901 is presented in chronological order, a display that conceals a highly significant conceptual micro-story of his oeuvre. Picasso’s classical triad – sex, life and death – is also
considered, as is his exploration of the theme of the mask
during the first decade of the twentieth century, which
would eventually lead to the disappearance of the image and
of the traditional self-portrait. The interesting variant of the
photographic self-portrait that took centre stage during his
Cubist period and beyond is also studied, alongside his Neoclassical works and the growing absence of conventional
representation in his self-portrayals. Last but not least, the
prints and self-portraits of his later years revisit the genre’s
traditional elements. In short, we could say that self-portraiture in Picasso traces a circular path that, broadly speaking,
begins and ends in the traditional self-portrait. This circular
structure enables us to point out interesting and sometimes
even astonishing connections between his early and late
works.
2. Zervos 1935, pp. 137–8.
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