The self-portrait: historical highlights
Ten-week art history and theory lecture series
16 September 2019 6.30 - 8pm23 September 2019 6.30 - 8pm30 September 2019 6.30 - 8pm7 October 2019 6.30 - 8pm14 October 2019 6.30 - 8pm21 October 2019 6.30 - 8pm28 October 2019 6.30 - 8pm4 November 2019 6.30 - 8pm11 November 2019 6.30 - 8pm18 November 2019 6.30 - 8pm
The Life Room, Royal Academy Schools
£540 for full course or £320 for five weeks. Includes all materials, light refreshments and a wine reception at the end of the fifth and tenth sessions.
Helene Schjerfbeck
Terms and conditions
In this 10-week lecture series you'll explore the medium of self-portraiture and how artists chose to depict themselves throughout art history.
Throughout art history, self-portraits have been used as self-promotion, to immortalise the sitter, as an exploration of identity, emotion and ideas. A self-portrait is a public display of the artist’s innermost self, both intensely private and yet their chosen record for posterity. By taking 10 emblematic self-portraits as a starting point, this lecture series provides in-depth analysis of each artists’ use of their own image to explore history, individual identity and psychology as well as its significance in the history of art and visual culture.
Each week, a leading expert will investigate one of art history’s most fascinating self-portraits and proceed to explore the historical context, the artist’s intention and what self-portraits can tell us about both art and history in general. We explore Dürer’s presentation of himself as Christ; Velázquez’s insertion of himself into one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, Las Meninas; first President of the RA Sir Joshua Reynolds' use of self-portraiture as self-promotion; and modern artists who have pushed the genre to its limits. This series coincides with the RA's exhibition Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits, bringing together for the first time over 50 paintings, prints and drawings spanning seven decades in a remarkable exploration of the self-portrait by one artist.
About the course
This course provides a unique opportunity to learn about self-portraits starting with 10 famous highlights of self-portraiture throughout art history.
The course will be delivered in part through lectures but will also include an opportunity for questions and discussion from participants.
Please note, participants are encouraged to take notes in each lecture as printed notes are at the discretion of each speaker.
It is designed both to enable an historical overview for those new to the field, and to be relevant for those with prior art history knowledge who are keen to learn from experts.
This course is suitable for enthusiastic beginners as well as those with previous knowledge who would like to develop their understanding further.
This course is for you if:
• You have a general interest in art history and would like a novel way to understand the history and theory of artists' self-portraits
• You would like to understand further themes of identity and psychology by exploring how artists have chosen to depict themselves throughout art history
• You would like to enrich your knowledge with an expert perspective and explore in detail the development of self-portraiture
Minimum age 18
Please let us know if you have accessibility needs.
£540 for full course
£320 for five weeks
Monday 16 September - Monday 18 November
6.30-8pm each session
This course provides:
• 10 expert-led lectures with the opportunity for questions and discussions
• The opportunity to learn and reflect within a peer group, with discussions facilitated by an expert in the field
• The opportunity to socialise and network with peers in a friendly environment
• A drinks reception at the end of the fifth and tenth weeks
• A certificate of participation upon course completion
About the speakers
Art Historian
Dr Frances Borzello's book Seeing Ourselves: Women’s Self-Portraits was reissued by Thames & Hudson in 2016. Other books which relate to her interest in the way art intersects with society include A World of Our Own: women as artists, The Naked Nude, The Artist’s Model and The Domestic Interior in Art.
Senior Curator, Mauritshuis
Quentin Buvelot is senior curator of the Mauritshuis, The Hague, a position he has held since 2008. In the past he organised numerous exhibitions with leading international institutions such as Dutch Portraits: The Age of Rembrandt and Frans Hals (National Gallery, London, 2007-2008). With Desmond Shawe-Taylor, surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures, he curated the exhibition Masters of the Everyday: Dutch Artists in the Age of Vermeer, shown in London, Edinburgh and The Hague (2015-2017). In March 2017 he curated an exhibition on the genesis of the Dutch and Flemish meal still life (1600-1640) at the Mauritshuis, and wrote for the accompanying scholarly catalogue alongside other Dutch art historians. He is currently preparing a new show for the autumn of 2018 in the Mauritshuis, Dutch paintings from National Trust houses in England.
Chief Art Critic, The Observer
Laura Cumming has been chief art critic of The Observer since 2000. Her first book was A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits. She is the author of The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velazquez, which was shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize, and won the James Tait Black Biography Prize in 2017. Her most recent book On Chapel Sands, a memoir about the connections between life and art, was BBC Radio 4 book of the week this summer.
Art Historian and Curator
Based in London, Albert Godycki studied art history in New York, Paris and London specialising in Northern European art of the fifteenth-century through to eighteenth-centuries, with his doctoral studies at the Courtauld Institute focusing on Dutch Mannerism. After completing his MA and curating a number of contemporary exhibitions, he joined the curatorial team at the National Gallery, London, where he contributed to the exhibitions Late Rembrandt, Vermeer and Music and Making Colour, as well as conceiving several temporary displays. He continues to lecture and publish widely and is currently preparing a major loan exhibition on Polish Symbolism for the Munich Kunsthalle. Since 2017, Albert has been helping UBS Wealth Management to broaden the bank’s outreach to art pre-1900.
Research Professor, Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton
Professor James Hall is Research Professor at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. A former art critic of The Guardian, he contributes to many publications, including the Times Literary Supplement. He has lectured at many museums and universities, and has appeared on radio, including Start the Week. He has written several critically acclaimed books: The World as Sculpture (1999); Michelangelo and the Reinvention of the Human Body (2005); The Sinister Side: How Left-Right Symbolism Shaped Western Art (2008). His latest prize-winning book, The Self-Portrait: A Cultural History (2014) has been translated into five languages.
Senior Curator, Royal Academy of Arts
Adrian completed an AHRC-funded PhD on the art of colonial Peru at the University of Essex in 2001 and shortly afterwards joined the Royal Academy of Arts as a curator of temporary exhibitions. He has worked on a broad range of exhibitions, including Aztecs, Turks: A Journey of a Thousand Years, 600-1600; Mexico: A Revolution in Art, 1910-1920; Anish Kapoor and Ai Weiwei. He recently curated The Art of Diplomacy: Brazilian Modernism Painted for War for Sala Brasil, the gallery of the Embassy of Brazil in London, as well as Oceania at the Royal Academy. He has published widely on the art of Latin America and contributed to the catalogue accompanying the exhibition Frida Kahlo Making Herself Up at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Adrian has been awarded the Ordem do Rio Branco for services to Brazilian culture.
Deputy Director for Grants & Publications, Paul Mellon Centre
Martin joined the Paul Mellon Centre in 2007 as Assistant Director for Academic Activities, later Deputy Director of Studies, then Deputy Director for Collections & Publications. Martin's research interests focus on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British Art, including portraiture, landscape and the history of art academies. Martin’s publications include Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Subject Pictures (Cambridge University Press 1995), Gainsborough (Tate and Princeton University Press 2002), and, with David Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Complete Catalogue of his Paintings (Yale University Press 2000). Among the exhibitions he has curated are Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity (Tate Britain and Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara 2005) and Johan Zoffany, RA: Society Observed (Yale Center for British Art and the Royal Academy of Arts, London 2011–2012)
Writer and Critic
Dr. Tim Smith-Laing is a writer and critic based in London. A book reviewer at The Telegraph and regular contributor of features on art for Apollo and Frieze, he has written on subjects ranging from Renaissance philosophy to The Monkees, and from Paul Valéry to Hieronymus Bosch. His poetry, fiction and essays have been published in The Junket. Prior to leaving academia in 2014 to concentrate on writing, he took a DPhil in late medieval and early modern mythography and spent three years as a lecturer in literature at Jesus College, Oxford, where he specialised in early modern literature and culture and the theory of criticism. His current projects are a novel based on the life of eighteenth-century German sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, a series of poems inspired by Jules Laforgue, and a cultural history of chance, titled Fortuna: The Lives of Lady Luck from Ancient Athens to Quantum Physics.
Head of Exhibitions, Royal Academy of Arts
Andrea Tarsia is Head of Exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Art, overseeing the delivery and development of the Academy’s world-renowned exhibitions programme. He trained in Art History and Film, specialising in post-war and contemporary art. Tarsia previously worked for the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Whitechapel Gallery (among others) and curated many critically acclaimed international exhibitions including Live In Your Head: Conceptual and Experimental Practices in Britain 1965-75; Early One Morning: New British Sculpture; A Short History of Performance, Parts I-IV; Gerhard Richter – Atlas and Sophie Calle: Talking to Strangers. He has also contributed to numerous publications and scholarly catalogues. While at the Whitechapel gallery he helped devise and teach on an MA Course in Curating, in conjunction with London Metropolitan University, and has since been a guest lecturer at several universities and art colleges across the UK. Most recently he curated Lucian Freud: The Self-portraits at the Royal Academy.
Our courses and classes programme
Our varied programme of short courses and classes provides an opportunity to explore subjects ranging from life drawing to the history of exhibitions and arts management, led by expert tutors and practising artists. These courses introduce traditional art-making processes, as well as perspectives on art history, theory and business.
About the space
The Life Room
The Royal Academy’s historic Life Room sits at the heart of the RA Schools. Usually closed to the public, this unique and significant space was designed in the 1860s, when the galleries and art school first moved to Burlington Gardens.
The semi-circular seating arrangement, based on an ancient design, traces its British history back to Hogarth’s Academy in St Martin’s Lane, c.1730. Directional light is used to enhance the delineation of the model’s musculature and aid life drawing, which has been practised in this room by generations of Royal Academy artists and students.
Give this course as a gift
All of our courses can be purchased as a gift for a friend or family member – giving the gift of education and a remarkable experience. To arrange a personalised Gift Voucher, please contact Anna Pojer, Academic Programmes Manager, by calling 020 7300 5684 or email anna.pojer@royalacademy.org.uk