And Now There Is a 'National Selfie Portrait Gallery'

Rembrandt did it. So did Raphael. And Van Gogh. And Kahlo and Beale and Courbet. The self-portrait, as a form, has been around almost as long as portraiture itself has — a testament to artists' obsession not only with form and function and beauty, but also with themselves.

Photography, along with everything else it did to and for art, lowered the barriers to the form, allowing people who lacked painterly talent or tools to engage in the time-honored art of the selfie. Almost as soon as cameras became common, selfies did, too

Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna uses a mirror and a Kodak Brownie box camera to take a self-portrait in October 1914. Image: Wikimedia Commons Read more...