Dolorosa de La Cruz ~ Self Portrait, pencil on card, September 2019

Mireille PIQUEMAL (1944-1971) ~ Self portrait, ink and wash 1962

Dolorosa de la Cruz... Self portrait and anagram , Mask no 9 of 9 ( Absurd Chintzy Love ) ,pastel and pencil ~ 2013

Sofia Bassi (1913-1998) ~ Self Portrait, Serigraph 1997

Gustav Klimt (1862-1918 ) ... Self portrait as the grim reaper, pencil on cardboard , undated

Born today... Georg Trakl ,February 3, 1887, Salzburg, Austria, Self portrait & poems

Mourning 

The dark eagles, sleep and death, 

Rustle all night around my head: 

The golden statue of man 

Is swallowed by the icy comber 

Of eternity. On the frightening reef 

The purple remains go to pieces, 

And the dark voice mourns 

Over the sea. 

Sister in my wild despair 

Look, a precarious skiff is sinking 

Under the stars, 

The face of night whose voice is fading.

Georg Trakl, self portrait, 1913

Whispered In The Afternoon

Feebly glints the sun's thin ray,

From the tree the ripe fruit falleth,

In the deep blue distance dwelleth

Silence--'tis an endless day.

Sharp a shot the stillness cleaves,

Prone to earth its victim bringing.

Harsh refrain of brown girls singing

Dies amid the fall of leaves.

Dream-wings o'er God's forehead play,

And He thinketh but in color.

Shadows round the hill grow duller,

Bordered by a dim decay.

Twilight, drunken with repose;

Sad guitar-notes trickle faintly.

Back unto his lamplight saintly

In a dream the wanderer goes.

Song of the Departed

To Karl Borromaeus Heinrich

The flight of birds is full of harmonies. At evening

The green forests have gathered to more silent huts;

The crystal meadows of the doe.

A dark shape calms the ripple of the brook, the damp shadows,

And the flowers of summer which ring beautifully in the wind. 

Already the brow of the pondering man grows dark. 

And goodness, a small lamp, shines in his heart 

And the peace of the meal; because bread and wine are sanctified 

By God's hands, and out of nocturnal eyes 

The brother silently gazes at you, so that he rests from thorny wanderings. 

O the dwelling in the soulful blueness of night. 

The silence in the room also lovingly embraces the shadows of ancestors, 

The purple martyrs, lament of a mighty race 

That now dies piously in the lonely grandchild. 

Because from black minutes of insanity the long-sufferer 

Always awakens more radiant at the petrified threshold 

And the cool blueness embraces him enormously and the bright decline of autumn, 

The still house and the telling of the forest, 

Measure and law and the lunar paths of the departed.

Springtime of the Soul

Outcry in sleep; through black alleys the wind falls,

The blue of spring beckons through breaking branches,

Purple night-dew and stars extinguish all around.

Greenish the river dawns, silverly the old avenues

And the towers of the city. O gentle drunkenness

In the gliding boat and the dark calls of the blackbird

In innocent gardens. Already, the rosy veil thins.

Solemnly the waters murmur. O the moist shadows of the floodplain,

The striding animal; greening shapes, flowering branches

Touch the crystal forehead; shimmering boat-sway.

Quietly the sun sounds in the rose-colored clouds by the hill.

Great is the stillness of the fir forest, the earnest shadows at the river.

Purity! Purity! Where are the terrible paths of death,

Of gray stony silence, the rocks of night

And the peaceless shadows? Abyss radiant with sun.

Sister, when I found you at the lonely clearing

In the forest, it was midday and the silence of the animal great;

Whiteness under wild oak, and the thorn bloomed silver.

Enormous dying and the singing flame in the heart.

Darker the waters flow around the beautiful play of fishes.

Hour of mourning, silent vision of the sun;

The soul is a strange shape on earth. Spiritually blueness

Dusks over the pruned forest; and a dark bell rings

Long in the village; peaceful escort.

Silently the myrtle blooms over the white eyelids of the dead.

Softly the waters whisper in the subsiding afternoon

And the wilderness on the bank greens more darkly; joy in the rosy wind;

The brother's gentle song by the evening hill.

Dorothea Tanning... Self portrait, oil on canvas 19444

Dolorosa... drawing... Happy Birthday Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 – July 13, 1954)

What Frida gave me ~ Dolorosa


"I recommend her to you, not as a husband but as an enthusiastic admirer of her work, acid and tender, hard as steel and delicate and fine as a butterfly's wing, lovable as a beautiful smile, and as profound and cruel as the bitterness of life." Diego Rivera

Augustus John ...Self Portrait...Tete Farouche... 1899-1900

Anne Sexton (1928- 1974)... self portrait & poem...

Self Portrait Undated

'You are the answer, '
I said, and entered,
lying down on the gates of the city.
Then the chains were fastened around me
and I lost my common gender and my final aspect.
Adam was on the left of me
and Eve was on the right of me,
both thoroughly inconsistent with the world of reason.
We wove our arms together
and rode under the sun.
I was not a woman anymore,
not one thing or the other.

O daughters of Jerusalem,
the king has brought me into his chamber.
I am black and I am beautiful.
I've been opened and undressed.
I have no arms or legs.
I'm all one skin like a fish.
I'm no more a woman
than Christ was a man. 

excerpt from ~ Consorting with Angels by Anne Sexton

Austin Osman Spare... Self Portrait....

Pastel on wooden board

Austin Osman Spare... Self Portrait....

¥ Austin Osman Spare ¥

'Self as Hitler'

In 1936 an official at the German Embassy in London bought a self-portrait by Spare because it bore a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler. The Fuhrer saw it and agreed and proceeded to invite Spare to Berlin to paint his portrait. Spare refused, replying
"Only from negations can I wholesomely conceive you. For I know of no courage sufficient to stomach your aspirations and ultimates. If you are superman, let me be for ever animal".