''Self Portrait with Nude'' (sometimes known as ''Self Portrait'' or ''The Model'') is an oil-on-canvas painting executed in 1913 by the English artist
Laura Knight.
A mature work, painted when Knight was 36 years old, it was controversial for its subject matter: a female artist painting a nude female
life model
An art model poses, often Nudity, nude, for visual artists as part of the creative process, providing a reference for the human body in a work of art. As an occupation, modeling requires the often strenuous 'Work (human activity), physical work' ...
. The painting was retained by Knight until her death in 1970, and bought by the
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to:
*National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra
*National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred
*National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C.
*National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
in 1971: the gallery has described it as "a bravura statement about the ability of women to paint hitherto taboo subjects on a scale and with an intensity, that heralds changes".
The painting shows a view of the artist in her studio, working on a painting of a nude female model, part of the painting, and the model herself posing for the painting. The artist is fully clothed, wearing a scarlet knitted cardigan and large hat, with her face viewed in profile, silhouetted by a light area of the painting depicted in the background. Behind her, to her left, is the painting she has been working on. Further back, to the right, is her life model, her friend and fellow artist
Ella Naper,
who is also facing away from the viewer, standing in a
contrapposto stance on a raised platform with a striped carpet, her arms raised and bent to clasp behind her head. The model stands out against an orange backcloth and the wall of the studio.
The work measures .
It was painted in Knight's studio in
Lamorna and first exhibited at the
Passmore Edwards Art Gallery in 1913, and then at the 1913 show of the
International Society of Sculptors, Painters and Gravers at the
Grosvenor Gallery in London, under the title '' The Model''.
Reputedly, it was rejected for the 1913
Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Critics objected to the impropriety of a female artist depicting herself alongside a female nude. At the time when Knight had attended art school, female students were not permitted to paint live models, being restricted to copying casts and drawings. Writing in ''The Telegraph'', art critic
Claude Phillips called the painting "harmless" and "dull", "obviously an exercise" which "might quite appropriately have stayed in the artist's studio", but also said that it was "vulgar" and "repels". An article in ''The Times'' in 1914 called it "extremely clever", but another in 1939 criticised its "mistaken attempts at solidity" and called it "regrettable".
Knight retained the work until her death in 1970, shortly before the opening of a major retrospective exhibition. It was sold at
Sotheby's later that year for £700, the highest price achieved in the sales by her executors to clear her studio, and it was acquired by the
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to:
*National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra
*National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred
*National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C.
*National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
in 1971.
The ''Financial Times'' has compared it to the later works of
Lucian Freud. In ''The Face of Britain'' (2015), the historian
Simon Schama described it as a "incomparably, her greatest work, all at once conceptually complex, heroically independent, formally ingenious and lovingly sensual."
References
External links
Self Portrait aka The Model 1913 damelauraknight.com
Self Portrait aka The Model artuk.org
Kathryn Hughes, ''The Telegraph'', 11 July 2013
Outer truth: Laura Knight at the National Portrait Gallery Rachel Spence, ''Financial Times'', 12 July 2013
Brian Sewell, ''Evening Standard'', 8 August 2013
{{Laura Knight
1913 paintings
Portraits by English artists
Paintings in the National Portrait Gallery, London
Paintings by Laura Knight
20th-century portraits
Paintings about painting
Nude art