How to Read Portraits

Galitz, Kathryn Calley
2024
120 pages
87 illustrations
8 x 10.5 in
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Portraiture goes far beyond capturing a likeness. This intimate genre sheds light on the subjects’ and makers’ politics, relationships, aspirations, and insecurities. Featuring more than fifty works across time and cultures, from the lifelike Faiyum funerary masks of ancient Roman Egypt to Pablo Picasso’s and Marsden Hartley’s abstractions to likenesses imagined by contemporary artists, this publication probes the notion of what constitutes a portrait, beyond mere verisimilitude. Bestselling author Kathryn Calley Galitz illuminates how artists through the ages have exploited the genre to reveal character and convey power and status; how artists as varied as Rembrandt and Cindy Sherman embraced artifice and roleplaying to explore identity; and how the term “portraiture” encompasses a wider variety of works than typically thought. This reexamination of a deceptively familiar genre provides fascinating ideas about what these images can tell us about the sitter, the artist, the culture in which they lived, and ourselves.

Konditor, August Sander  German, Gelatin silver print
August Sander
ca. 1928, printed 1976
Untitled (Studio), Kerry James Marshall  American, Acrylic on PVC panels
Kerry James Marshall
2014
Marble portrait of the emperor Augustus, Marble, Roman
Roman
ca. 14–37 CE
Portrait of the Boy Eutyches, Encaustic on wood
A.D. 100–150
Bottle with portrait head, Moche artist(s), Ceramic, slip, Moche
Moche artist(s)
500–800 CE
Tommaso di Folco Portinari (1428–1501); Maria Portinari (Maria Maddalena Baroncelli, born 1456), Hans Memling  Netherlandish, Oil on wood
Hans Memling
ca. 1470
Hermann von Wedigh III (died 1560), Hans Holbein the Younger  German, Oil and gold on oak
Hans Holbein the Younger
1532
The Businessman Max Roesberg, Dresden, Otto Dix  German, Oil on canvas
Otto Dix
1922
Portrait of the artist’s great-granduncle Yizhai at the age of eighty-five, Ruan Zude  Chinese, Hanging scroll; ink and color on silk, China
Ruan Zude
dated 1561 or 1621
The Past, the Present, and the Future (Le passé – Le présent – L'Avenir), published in La Caricature, no. 166, Jan. 9, 1834, Honoré Daumier  French, Lithograph
Multiple artists/makers
January 9, 1834
Self-Portrait, Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)  Dutch, Oil on canvas
Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn)
1660
Three Studies for Self-Portrait, Francis Bacon  British, born Ireland, Oil on canvas
Francis Bacon
1979
Queen Mother Pendant Mask: Iyoba, Edo artist, Ivory, iron, copper (?), Edo
Edo artist
16th century
Cosimo I de' Medici (1519–1574), Duke of Florence, Baccio Bandinelli  Italian, Marble, Italian, Florence
Baccio Bandinelli
1539–40
Portrait of Napoleon I, baron François Gérard  French, Wool, silk, silver-gilt thread (26-28 warps per inch, 10-12 per cm.); gilded pine frame, French, Paris
Multiple artists/makers
designed 1805, woven 1808–11
James Stuart (1612–1655), Duke of Richmond and Lennox, Anthony van Dyck  Flemish, Oil on canvas
Anthony van Dyck
ca. 1633–35
Mr. and Mrs. I. N. Phelps Stokes, John Singer Sargent  American, Oil on canvas, American
John Singer Sargent
1897
Elenka, Alice Neel  American, Oil on canvas
Alice Neel
1936
Untitled, #313 [Woman Seated on Chair], Seydou Keïta  Malian, Gelatin silver print, 2001
Seydou Keïta
1956–57
Peelatchixaaliash/Old Crow (Raven) from 1880 Crow Peace Delegation, Wendy Red Star  American, Inkjet print of artist-manipulated digitally reproduced photograph
Wendy Red Star
2014
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Galitz, Kathryn Galley. How to Read Portraits. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2024.