self portrait essay brainly

How to Write a Self-Portrait Essay

How to Create a Life Map

A self-portrait essay is a paper that describes you -- and what's important to you -- to your reader. Choosing what aspects of yourself you want to describe before you begin your essay will help you choose the most evocative images and events to include in your essay. Using specific images from your life will give your reader a physical image of who you are.

Reflect on Your Experiences

Before you begin writing your self-portrait essay, reflect on yourself. Think about the sort of personality you have, what types of people you get along with and your goals and aspirations. Once you've taken time to look at yourself, think about what aspects of yourself you want to focus on. To make your essay engaging, pick an area that challenges you. For instance, you might write about how you try to form new friendships despite your anxieties, or how you commit to your convictions even if it brings you into conflict with others. You can also explore what ideas -- religion, philosophy, ethics -- are important to you. Deciding on two or three aspects you wish to focus on will help you narrow down what you include in your writing.

Introduce Yourself

Begin writing your essay by introducing your reader to yourself. Describe where you live and your family, and provide a physical description of yourself. To make your introduction catchy and interesting, avoid listing these details as if you're just answering a series of questions. Working them into physical descriptions of your life can make this information more interesting. For instance, if you're 17, you might introduce your age by saying: "We moved into this squat brick house 15 years ago -- two years after I was born."

You can also use a picture of yourself -- a literal self-portrait -- as an image to begin your essay. Find a picture of yourself from your past, and describe what that picture shows about you. For instance, if your picture shows you when you were upset, you might say that you can remember being sad when you were a child, but you can't quite remember why. This can be an excellent way of bringing in your reader and beginning to discuss how you have or haven't changed over time.

Tell Your Stories

The body of your essay should explore the aspects of yourself you decided to write about. For each aspect, pick two or three events from your life and write a paragraph for each. If you want to show your determination, for instance, you might describe a time that you ran all the way to school when your bus didn't come. If you hold steadfast to your opinions, you could describe a long political argument you had with your family, and the mixture of pride and anger you felt afterward. These events will show your personality and give you the opportunity to describe physical locations and actions, which will make your self-portrait feel more real to your reader.

In addition to using events from your life to illustrate your personality, describe yourself using objects from your life. If you're an avid reader, spend part of your essay describing the large bookshelves in your room. If you're meticulous about your hobbies, use an image of a plant that you keep on your windowsill.

The conclusion paragraph of your essay should tie your paper together. It should draw on the aspects of your personality and the events in your life that you've described and ask where you're going in the future, or what you feel about yourself now that those events are in the past. Don't summarize or restate the items you've already described. Instead, tie them together or build on them. For instance, if you described making art in the past, talk about how you hope to rediscover your creativity. If you know you'll have to deal with ideas you don't agree with in the future, write how you think you'll handle them.

Alternatively, conclude your essay by restating the details from your introduction in a different light. By tying the beginning and end of your essay together, you will give a sense of completion to your reader. For instance, if you describe your house as "gloomy" in your introduction, but spend your paper talking about the fun you've had with your siblings, you might conclude your essay by saying: "Yes, it's a gloomy house, but we know how to make it shine."

Related Articles

How to Write a Narrative Essay

How to Write an Autobiography for a College Assignment

What Should a Narrative Essay Format Look Like?

How to Write a Short Essay Describing Your Background

How to Start a Personal Essay for High School English

How to Build an Outline for a Personal Narrative

How to Write a Descriptive Essay on an Influential Person in Your Life

How to write an essay with a thesis statement.

• Napa Valley College: Self Portrait (Description) Essay
• Teen Ink: Self Portrait

Jon Zamboni began writing professionally in 2010. He has previously written for The Spiritual Herald, an urban health care and religious issues newspaper based in New York City, and online music magazine eBurban. Zamboni has a Bachelor of Arts in religious studies from Wesleyan University.

• Essay Topic Generator
• Summary Generator
• Thesis Maker Academic
• Sentence Rephraser
• Read My Paper
• Hypothesis Generator
• Cover Page Generator
• Text Compactor
• Essay Scrambler
• Essay Plagiarism Checker
• Hook Generator
• AI Writing Checker
• Notes Maker
• Overnight Essay Writing
• Topic Ideas
• Writing Tips
• Essay Writing (by Genre)
• Essay Writing (by Topic)

Self-Portrait Essay: Examples and How to Write a Portrait

A portrait essay presents a personality to the readers. It usually focuses on the aspects of life that are the most exciting or unique.

It comprises two types of papers: a self-portrait essay and a portrait of another person. This article explains how to write these assignments with utmost efficiency. You will find the best tips, ideas, and samples to describe yourself or someone else as precisely as possible.

👧 Self-Portrait Essay

A self-portrait essay is a piece of writing that describes the author’s looks and personal qualities . It uses evocative images and characteristic details to show why this person stands out from the crowd. As a rule, it is a descriptive or reflective essay. Still, it can be argumentative if you want to contradict someone else’s opinion about you.

How to Write a Self-Portrait

Below you’ll find several ideas for a self-portrait essay. These are just general guidelines. If you need a creative and well-formulated topic, you are welcome to use our topic-generating tool .

• Start the introduction with an introduction. We are not talking about “Hi, my name is Cathy,” although this variant is also possible in some contexts. Tell about your family and where you live. Do not just list facts as if you are answering a questionnaire. Make up a background story.
• Imagine yourself a book character . How would you describe yourself if you wrote a book about your life ? This approach can make your self-portrait essay more poetic and literary. Replace the epithets that can describe many people (straight nose, thin lips, high forehead) with metaphors (a nose as straight as an arrow, paper-thin lips, expansive forehead). It will make your essay more memorable.
• Speak about objects & stories. Appearance is only a tiny part of your personality . Your life consists of items you like, people you love, and stories you create. That’s what you readers will enjoy reading!
• Conclude with your hopes for the future. Do not reiterate what you said before, even if you cannot imagine anything new. Write how you would like to develop your skills or become a better professional in the future. Make your essay open-ended, as any human life is.

Self-Portrait Essay Example

Who am I? What kind of person am I? What do I like? What do I want to become? In this essay, I will describe my appearance and how it reflects my inner world. Looking in the mirror, I see a slender but slightly skinny girl. I have an oval face, a small straight nose, and sparkling eyes. It is the eyes that make my friends and acquaintances look at my face. They are profound, although they add playfulness to my face. In cloudy weather, they acquire a dark steel shade. When it is sunny, they brighten up. In general, I have kind gray eyes. As my friends say, it seems that they “laugh.” That’s what I am all about. I am kind, cheerful, moderately strict, and responsive. I have a high forehead, hidden behind curtain bangs, and beautiful thick eyebrows of the correct shape hidden under the bangs. But this is not a gift from nature. I had to work on the form of the eyebrows on my own. My lips are not thin, but not full either. Behind them, there are snow-white teeth. The hair is straight, although I always wanted to have curls. It is wheat-colored and reaches the shoulders. I am a purposeful person, so I always set tasks that I immediately try to accomplish. But I never stop in my development. I raise the bar even higher and confidently put the next goal. It is essential for me to be the best in everything, so I have to work harder. Most likely, this is my drawback, but this quality fuels me to keep on growing. I would like to become firm, successful, and self-confident.

👨‍🎨️ Descriptive Portrait Essay

A descriptive essay about a person is a genre that analyzes the individual features and human qualities of a given person. People have so many different sides that there is a broad array of possibilities in this genre. Write of someone you know well enough (to have sufficient material).

Essay About a Person: Ideas

Below you’ll find six great ideas for an essay about a person.

• Describe appearance . First impressions are the most lasting . Your readers will get your message better if you give them a “picture.” It will play the role of a whiteboard where you’ll attack all the other traits.
• Link appearance to personality traits . But looks are not everything. They are the top of the iceberg. Show your reader why you paid attention to those characteristics and which conclusions you made.
• Mention their manners . It is optional but quite exciting to track. We are not stable, and our manners reflect those emotional shifts. Describe how the person behaves in stressful situations .
• Spot the emotions they raise in you . This part will make a perfect conclusion. Share your feelings with the readers to build empathy.
• Balance between being concise and informative . Avoid overwhelming your reader with irrelevant details. If the described person is someone you know well, it may be challenging to point out what is worth mentioning and what is not.
• Learn how to describe from professionals . If you wish to learn how to write, you should read a lot. In particular, you should read works of the same genre. Write down the metaphors and epithets your favorite author uses in their character descriptions.

How to Write a Portrait

We have prepared for you a mini guide on how to write a portrait of a person. Just follow these 8 simple steps:

• Collect information about a person . It is crucial to write about a person you know well, like a close friend, a classmate, or a family member. Consider conducting an interview with this person or talking with other people who know this individual to gain more insights and observations.
• Create a thesis and an outline . Choose interesting details, anecdotes, unique features, or qualities of your chosen person that are worth describing in your essay. Organize all the information logically in an outline to make writing easier. Also, create a thesis statement, which must include the person you write about and your purpose for describing them.
• Start with a physical description . At this stage, you need to be as specific as possible. Try to describe not only the appearance of the person but add details about their smell, voice, etc.
• Describe the behavior . Focus on what makes this person unique — their laugh, a manner of talking, a way of moving, etc.
• Demonstrate your character’s reputation . To do so, show how your described person makes others feel, treats others, and contributes to the world.
• Show your character’s environment and belongings . A person’s environment and belongings can reveal much about their personality, interests, and values. So, include details about what things are important to your described individual and whether their environment looks tidy, cluttered, dirty, etc.
• Write about their manner of speech . Describe the person’s choice of words and intonation to reflect their education level, confidence or fear, and unique worldview.
• Conclude by summarizing unique qualities . In your last paragraph, summarize what makes your described person unique. Add a concluding sentence conveying the final impression they have made on you.

Descriptive Portrait Essay Example

My best friend is a person who deserves a separate book. She had a complicated but interesting life. She is the third child in a large family and wants to become a nurse. I will dedicate this essay to her features and personal qualities to show that you can be a good person despite anything. Mary’s appearance is unremarkable and even plain. She is tall and plump, and her gestures are indecisive. The girl seems to be shy, but she becomes very confident when her family or values are harmed. One could see a strict line between her eyebrows. It marks her inner strength and decisiveness. The look of her grey eyes is attentive and benevolent. It helps her win the interlocutor in an argument. By the way, communication skills are the strongest part of her character. She is open and cheerful but sometimes too impulsive. The way she speaks and behaves comforts me, like a cold winter evening in front of a fireplace. She is kind and caring, and always does her best to make any interaction pleasurable. Still, when someone acts with hypocrisy, she prefers to break up with such a person. It is hard for Mary to give people a second chance. This feature has its drawbacks, but it also makes her friends’ circle tight and reliable. Mary wants to become a nursery teacher because she loves children. At the moment, she is studying for that, and I am sure she will succeed. This girl has taught me that people can combine mutually exclusive features in themselves and remain to be nice friends and intelligent specialists.

We hope we’ve inspired you to write your portrait essay. If you have already written your text and want it to be read aloud, you are welcome to use our text-to-speech tool .

❓ Portrait Essay FAQ

How to write a portrait essay.

1. Make a list of the most remarkable facial features and character traits of the person in question. 2. Relate the above to their character. 3. Group your findings into categories. 4. Dedicate one main body paragraph to each category.

How to Start a Portrait Essay?

Any essay should start with background information. In the case of a portrait essay, you could mention how you got to know the person or what your first impression was. Or, you can give general information about their family and work. Finish your introduction with a thesis statement, informing the reader of the purpose of your writing.

How to Write a Self-portrait Essay?

1. Sit in front of the mirror and think about which of your features differ you from other people. 2. Write the main body, dedicating each paragraph to a different aspect of your appearance. 3. Write the introduction about what kind of person you are and how you came to the place where you are now. 4. Write the conclusion about your future intentions.

How Do You Write a Character Portrait Essay?

1. Carefully read all the author’s descriptions of the character. 2. Link them to the plot as most characters reveal themselves gradually. 3. Think what impressed you the most about the character. 4. Write your opinion using the image the author created and your own imagination.

🔗 References

• Descriptive Essays | Purdue Online Writing Lab
• Descriptive Essay Examples – YourDictionary
• How to Give a Description of a Character – wikiHow
• How to Write About Yourself | Indeed.com
• 7 Helpful Tips on How to Write a Memorable Personal Essay
• Personal Essay Topics and Prompts – ThoughtCo

Home » Writers-House Blog » Self-Portrait Essays: Writing Tips

Self-Portrait Essays: Writing Tips

Self-portrait essays are aimed to describe the author. When writing a self-portrait essay, you should think of your audience and find the best approaches to describe yourself to its members. Use evocative images and specific details to make your description more vivid and engaging. Writing consultants from Writers-house.com service wrote this quick guide to help you write an outstanding self-portrait essay.

Think of Your Experiences

First, take your time and reflect on yourself. Think about your personality, your aspirations, and goals. What people you like to see around yourself? What you’d like to achieve in the future? We recommend that you choose a relatively challenging area to make your essay more engaging. For example, if you suffer from anxiety, you can describe how you overcome it to build relationships with other people. You may write about how you keep standing your ground despite the pressure from others. You may also write about your ethical, philosophical, or religious views. The main thing is to clearly define the focus of your essay.

Describe Yourself

You should begin your essay with an introduction. You need to introduce yourself and to provide a general description that will allow your readers to quickly learn the most important things about you. However, avoid simply listing the details about yourself because you don’t want the introduction to be boring. For example, if you want to say that you’re 16 years old, you can tell your readers how you and your parents moved to a new place 13 years ago, when you were three years old.

A good approach is to take a picture of yourself or take a look at your old pictures and describe what this picture can tell about you. For example, if you look happy on this picture, tell your readers about that day and why you were happy. A picture from the past is also a great opportunity to discuss how you’ve changed over time.

Tell Your Story

The main part of your essay must provide your readers with insights into the chosen area of yourself. When writing about some aspects of your life, make sure to illustrate them with specific events. Devote one body paragraph to one aspect, and provide some opinions. For example, you may mention a political argument with your family or explain what do you think about the overall quality of life in the town where you were born. You should show your personality and illustrate it with such details as events, locations, etc.

We recommend that you don’t use an opportunity to make your self-description more vivid by describing objects that surround your everyday life. For example, describe your room or tell your readers something about your hobbies and passions.

The Conclusion

The last paragraph of your essay should wrap it up and tie together all the pieces of information about yourself, creating a complete image. The conclusion is a great place to tell your readers what you think about your life now, and what you’re going to do in the future. We recommend that you don’t restate any information that you’ve already mentioned in the body of your essay. Don’t write a summary. Instead, provide a new perspective. Writing about your goals and plans is a great solution.

We also recommend that you conclude the essay by considering things you’ve been addressing in the introduction in a different light. If your introduction and conclusion are connected to each other, your essay will create a sense of completion. Make sure that different sections of your essay are logically connected to each other and your story is consistent.

Leave a Reply

Be the First to Comment!

Place your order

• Essay Writer
• Essay Writing Service
• Term Paper Writing
• Research Paper Writing
• Assignment Writing Service
• Cover Letter Writing
• CV Writing Service
• Resume Writing Service
• 5-Paragraph Essays
• Paper By Subjects
• Affordable Papers
• Prime quality of each and every paper
• Everything written per your instructions
• Native-speaking expert writers
• 100% authenticity guaranteed
• Timely delivery
• Attentive 24/7 customer care team
• Benefits for return customers
• Affordable pricing

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. Take the first step today

Meet top uk universities from the comfort of your home, here’s your new year gift, one app for all your, study abroad needs, start your journey, track your progress, grow with the community and so much more.

Verification Code

An OTP has been sent to your registered mobile no. Please verify

Thanks for your comment !

Our team will review it before it's shown to our readers.

• Career Counselling /

Self Portrait Essay Introduction

• Updated on  
• Nov 9, 2023

A self-portrait essay is an opportunity to dive deep into one’s own self-psyche and explore the various facets of their personality, experiences, and emotions. It is a form of autobiographical writing that allows individuals to express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences through their own unique lens. In this type of essay, the writer becomes both the subject and the author, painting a vivid picture of themselves for the reader.

A self-portrait essay is not only a means of self-expression but also a powerful tool for self-discovery, reflection, and growth. In this essay, one will explore the various aspects of their personality, experiences, and emotions, and present an introduction of themselves to the reader to gain a deeper understanding of who they are as an individual. 

Individuals can refer to this blog, to know and understand how to write a self-portrait essay introduction. 

This Blog Includes:

How to write a self-portrait essay introduction , points to include in your self-portrait essay, self portrait sample.

Writing an introduction for a self-portrait essay can be an interesting and reflective exercise. Here are some steps you can follow to write a successful self-portrait essay:

• Brainstorm: Start by brainstorming about yourself. Think about your personality, experiences, strengths, weaknesses, and how they have shaped you as a person. Jot down notes and ideas that come to your mind.
• Introduction: Start your essay with a catchy introduction that sets the tone for your essay. You can use a quote, an anecdote, or a question to engage the reader.
• Personal background: Provide some background information about yourself, including where you grew up, your family, and any significant events that have influenced your life.
• Personal qualities: Describe your personality traits, including your strengths and weaknesses. Discuss how these traits have impacted your life and relationships.
• Accomplishments: Write about your accomplishments, both big and small. Talk about what you have achieved and what you are proud of.
• Challenges: Discuss the challenges you have faced in your life and how you have overcome them. This can be a powerful way to show your resilience and strength.
• Goals: Talk about your goals, both short-term and long-term. Explain what motivates you and what you hope to achieve in the future.

Conclude your essay by summarizing your main points and leaving the reader with a final thought or reflection.

Also Read: How to Handle Tough Interview Questions with Ease

When writing a self-portrait essay, there are several things you can mention to provide a comprehensive and insightful depiction of yourself. Here are some ideas:

• Personal Identity: You can start by mentioning your name, age, place of birth, family background, and any other significant details about your upbringing that have contributed to your identity. Discuss your relationships with family, friends, and significant others, and how they have impacted your life.
• Personality Traits: Describe your personality, including your strengths and weaknesses, your likes and dislikes, your values, and your beliefs.
• Education and Career: Mention your academic qualifications, any degrees or certifications earned, and your current or past profession.
• Hobbies and Interests: Mention any hobbies, sports, or activities you enjoy, and how they have influenced your life.
• Accomplishments: Highlight your achievements, both personal and professional, that you are most proud of.
• Examples of Overcoming Obstacles: Discuss any challenges or obstacles you have faced in life, and how you overcame them with the help of examples. Do not forget to add what you learned from them. 
• Goals and Aspirations: Mention your short-term and long-term goals, and what you hope to achieve in life.

In the end, you can also share any unique experiences in your life. Share your experiences related to travel, volunteer work, or other notable events.

Also Read: How To Ace Your Self Introduction in Interview!

Here is a sample that you can refer to while writing a self-portrait essay introduction yourself: 

The self-portrait essay can be started by mentioning your name, native place, family background, and education, along with many other details.

A self-portrait essay is an opportunity to express yourself as an individual and introduce the reader to your various facets including your interests, native place, education or belongingness.

For more interesting blogs, check the links given below in the table.

For the latest blogs on Interview Preparation, Careers, and more, follow the Leverage Edu website and YouTube channel .

Aditi Gupta

A bachelors in Journalism and Mass Communication graduate, I am an enthusiastic writer. I love to write about impactful content which can help others. I love to binge watch and listen to music during my free time.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Contact no. *

Leaving already?

8 Universities with higher ROI than IITs and IIMs

Grab this one-time opportunity to download this ebook

Connect With Us

25,000+ students realised their study abroad dream with us. take the first step today..

Resend OTP in

Need help with?

Study abroad.

UK, Canada, US & More

IELTS, GRE, GMAT & More

Scholarship, Loans & Forex

Country Preference

New Zealand

Which English test are you planning to take?

Which academic test are you planning to take.

Not Sure yet

When are you planning to take the exam?

Already booked my exam slot

Within 2 Months

Want to learn about the test

Which Degree do you wish to pursue?

When do you want to start studying abroad.

January 2024

September 2024

What is your budget to study abroad?

How would you describe this article ?

Please rate this article

We would like to hear more.

Have something on your mind?

Make your study abroad dream a reality in January 2022 with

India's Biggest Virtual University Fair

Essex Direct Admission Day

Why attend .

Don't Miss Out

How the Self-Portrait Evolved Into the Selfie

By Google Arts & Culture

Arthur Elgort Self Portrait (2012-01-01) by Arthur Elgort Condé Nast Archive

A look at the artists who’ve defined self-portraiture It’s said that every day 93 million selfies are taken all over the world, with many of them being shared across multiple platforms for handfuls of likes, comments and adoration. While it might seem like we’re more self-obsessed than ever, you could argue the simple act of snapping a pic of yourself is merely a form of self-expression, with a much bigger potential audience.

Astronaut Ricky Arnold takes an selfie or space-selfie to swap thermal control gear. NASA

The art of self-expression, and more specifically self-portraiture – the godfather of the selfie – goes back centuries. Since the earliest times, we as humans have loved to let people know what we looked like through art. Yet it wasn’t until the Early Renaissance, in the mid-15th century, that the trend really started to grow. This shift in artists experimenting with self-portraiture was brought on by mirrors becoming better and cheaper to get hold of and the advent of panel painting – the technique of painting on a flat panel of wood rather than on walls, which were often uneven or using vellum (animal skin that went through a long preparation process).

Mary Cassatt Self-Portrait (circa 1880) by Mary Stevenson Cassatt Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery

It became an opportunity for artists to depict themselves as the main subject, as heroes in their own stories. Even today it’s still seen as an opportunity to capture a version of yourself nobody else sees. The difference though, is that a digital selfie is a much more instant way of creating a self-portrait, its reach is far bigger than it ever was, and there's more of a danger that it can be manipulated not just by the creator, but by other people. It's this uncertainty that has perhaps led people to talk about the deluge of selfies and the motivations behind them more in recent years.

AFLW 2019 Preliminary Finals (2019-03-23) by Mike Owen Australian Football League

Whatever the method, whether it’s oil on canvas or a snapshot made up of pixels, these parallels suggest a need to look at the artists that have used self-portraiture in their work over the years, to pinpoint key moments, developments and motivations. Here we’ve searched through museum archives and gallery collections to highlight the best examples of self-portraits and selfies from around the world.

Self Portrait as the Apostle Paul (1661) by Rembrandt Harmensz van Rijn Rijksmuseum

Rembrandt Working in the 1600s, Rembrandt’s self-portraits form an important part of his oeuvre. Creating nearly 100 self-portraits in the form of paintings, etchings and drawings, the artist often depicted himself as confident and accomplished, with his velvet beret a signature attribute.

Rembrandt Laughing (about 1628) by Rembrandt Harmensz. van Rijn The J. Paul Getty Museum

Rembrandt's self-portraits were created by the artist looking at himself in a mirror, and the paintings and drawings therefore reverse his actual features. This is one reason why the hands are usually omitted or "just cursorily described" in his paintings as they would be on the "wrong" side if painted from the mirror. Zoom into the images below to see the fine brushstrokes the artist has used to capture an accurate likeness to himself.

Self-portrait with Monkey (1945) by Frida Kahlo Museo Robert Brady

Frida Kahlo Mexican painter Frida Kahlo is known for her colorful and highly detailed self-portraits. Taking them beyond an aesthetic portrayal of herself, Kahlo’s works dealt with the artist’s physical and psychological suffering during her lifetime, as well as touching upon her turbulent marriage to fellow artist Diego Rivera , and sometimes offered a philosophical standpoint on politics, feminism, and other issues.

Self Portrait (5) (1932) by Amrita Sher-Gil National Gallery of Modern Art

Amrita Sher-Gil Said to be a pioneer in Indian art and one of the greatest avant-garde artists of the 20th century, Amrita Sher-Gil embarked on a series of self-portraits during the 1930s while in Paris. Within them, the artist explored her Indian background with her European training and conveyed a plethora of moods.

Self-Portrait as a Tahitian by Amrita Sher-gil Kiran Nadar Museum of Art

This series of paintings was a way for Sher-Gil to experiment with ways of representing the non-western body. She was inspired by Paul Gauguin's work, particularly his depictions of the South Sea Islands and his "stylistically simplified, yet symbolically charged" Tahitian nudes.

Self-portrait (March 1887 - June 1887) by Vincent van Gogh Van Gogh Museum

Vincent Van Gogh In the self-portraits of Dutch post-impressionist painter Vincent van Gogh , he depicts a mirror image of himself. With little money to pay for models to paint and a lack of commissions coming in, Van Gogh decided to paint himself and created around 30 self-portraits in total.

Self-portrait with grey felt hat (September 1887 - October 1887) by Vincent van Gogh Van Gogh Museum

Van Gogh believed that portrait painting would help him develop his skills as an artist. He was once quoted as saying: "If I can manage to paint the coloring of my own head, which is not to be done without some difficulty, I shall likewise be able to paint the heads of other good souls, men and women”. Zoom into van Gogh's images below to see the layers of color and individual brushstrokes the artist built up on the canvas in order to convey a certain atmosphere and mood.

Self Portrait (1940) by Lois Mailou Jones Smithsonian American Art Museum

Lois Mailou Jones In this particular self-portrait by American artist Lois Mailou Jones from 1940, an exploration of identity is apparent. While Jones didn’t travel to Africa until 1970, age 65, here the forms and vibrant color she associated with the ceremonies of Africa are infused in the form of allusions to traditional African sculpture within the work. Jones' work echoes her pride in her African roots and American ancestry and she felt that her greatest contribution to the art world was "proof of the talent of black artists". She wished to be known as an American painter with no labels.

Self-Portrait (1940) by Victor Brecheret MASP - Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand

Victor Brecheret Victor Brecheret was an Italian-Brazilian sculptor whose work was a combination of European modernist sculpture with references to his native country through the physical characteristic of his human forms. In this three-dimensional self-portrait created in 1940, Brecheret draws upon motifs from Brazilian folk art and combines them with clean lines and the smoothness and weight of bronze.

In the mirror: self portrait with Joy Hester (1939) by Albert Tucker National Portrait Gallery

Albert Tucker Known better for his paintings, 20th century Australian artist Albert Tucker was also an enthusiastic photographer. In this self-portrait, he appears with his wife Joy Hester, a kindred spirit in her passion for creating art. Though it captures two people instead of the typical one, the candid shot feels intimate as the viewer is left questioning the relationship between the subjects.

Madonna (Self-Portrait) (1975) by Cindy Sherman SCAD Museum of Art

Cindy Sherman American photographer and director Cindy Sherman’s conceptual works stretch the idea of the self-portrait and highlight the ways in which photography can be manipulated to portray what the artist wants us to see.

Untitled (1980) by Cindy Sherman The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

A playful balance between parody and caricature, Sherman’s works are character studies that make the viewer question everything. She explores identity and the nature of representation using movies, TV, magazines, and art history as her inspiration.

Self Portrait With Fried Eggs 1996 (1999) by Sarah Lucas British Council

Sarah Lucas Sarah Lucas , part of the Young British Artists who emerged during the 1990s, created a series of 12 self-portraits from 1990 to 1998. Photographic self-portraits have become an important part of Lucas’ work in the way they’ve given the artist room to explore various aspects of herself and challenge stereotypical ideas of identity. Lucas is concerned with the casual misogyny of everyday life and her works frequently employ visual puns and bawdy humor to explore this. As well as photography, she uses collage and found objects to execute her ideas.

Excellences Excellences and Perfections Perfections (Episode 03) 14th September 2014 (2014/2014) by Amalia Ulman The Moving Museum

Amalia Ulman Coming to the art world’s attention in 2014 for her Instagram-based art project, Amalia Ulman’s work is a sociological critique and a blurring of fact and fiction. Excellences and Perfections is a compilation of around 200 low-fi selfies that Ulman placed periodically on her Instagram account and presented a semi-fictionalized makeover to her followers.

The artist took the project to extremes when she underwent plastic surgery getting fillers and a staged boob job. Her account amassed 65,000 confused followers while it was live. Combining self-portraiture with a kind of performance art for the digital age, Ulman demonstrated how far the self-portrait can be taken and the dialogue that can be created.

To discover even more selfies and self-portraits, check out our time and color tool . Here you can look at selfies painted way back in the 15th century and compare them to ones created today, or unearth the color palettes adopted by different artists and see the similarities between them.

Explore More 10 Self-Portraits By Women Artists

Nine Women Artists: From Sensual to Amorphous

Kiran nadar museum of art, michael willson's lens on the afl, australian football league, art in fashion: masp's rhodia collection, masp - museu de arte de são paulo assis chateaubriand, eye to i: self-portraits from 1900 - today, smithsonian's national portrait gallery, australia: sport and identity, national portrait gallery, folk archive, british council, the james webb space telescope explained, african american art: harlem renaissance, civil rights era, and beyond, smithsonian american art museum, rediscovering haripura panels: nandalal bose, national gallery of modern art, the address of vermeer's little street discovered, rijksmuseum, the usable past: reflections on american history 2000–2017, the museum of fine arts, houston, condé nast's dream pad, condé nast archive, joseph: a celebrated haitian model in 19th-century paris, the j. paul getty museum, self-portrait with monkey, 1945, museo robert brady, which books did vincent van gogh read, van gogh museum.

The Self-Portrait Challenge

Have you ever had to do a self-portrait in an art lesson at school today, we’re challenging you to write self-portrait poems : you can be as realistic, or as abstract, as you like… .

This challenge is now closed. Congratulations to the winners, whose poems you can read in the sidebar. Congratulations, too, to the longlisted poets whose work impressed the judges: Eva Woolven, Daria Lukovskova, Florence Hall, Kexin Huang, Laura Stanley, Lily Antrobus, Maggie Wang, R Sreemathi, Sharlene Oola, Tomisin Delano, Shivani Yadavalli, and Hannah Lam. 

The challenge: write a self-portrait poem

Here’s a useful, concise definition of a self-portrait from from the Tate’s glossary of art terms :

‘A portrait is a representation of a particular person. A self-portrait is a portrait of the artist by the artist.’  

It’s not uncommon to feel like the way people see you on the outside doesn’t quite match up with how you feel on the inside. As Mulan famously puts it, ‘when will my reflection show who I am inside?’ So creating a self-portrait can be a good opportunity to address those differences and present the realest, truest version of yourself.  

Being real doesn’t necessarily mean being realistic , though. Part of the power of art, whether it’s poetry or painting, is how it lets you distort and shape reality into what you want it to say: a self-portrait doesn’t have to represent reality straightforwardly, and can instead be abstract or surreal. Take Mexican painter Frida Kahlo’s (1907-1954) painting ‘ Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird, ’ for example. Rather than giving us a straightforward, accurate reflection of herself stood at an easel, Kahlo turns her self-portrait into something surreal by introducing animals and insects, and transforming thorns into jewellery to symbolise the physical pain she experienced as a disabled painter. 

You’ve probably taken a fair few self-portraits in your own time, too, if selfies on a smartphone count! Have a look at older pictures of yourself and think about what they tell the viewer about you at a particular time in your life. What are you wearing? Who are you with? Where are you? Did you use a virtual filter to smooth out your skin or give yourself bunny ears? 

Your challenge is to create a self-portrait in verse, using words instead of paint. Read on for some more inspiration… 

Warm-up: make a list!

Let’s break down self-portraits into smaller parts. In Simon Armitage’s poem ‘ Not the Furniture Game, ’ the speaker conjures a portrait of someone by listing metaphors describing their body:

His hair was a crow fished out of a blocked chimney and his eyes were boiled eggs with the tops hammered in and his blink was a cat flap and his teeth were bluestones or the Easter Island statues and his bite was a perfect horseshoe…

Have a go at writing a list of metaphors exploring your physical appearance, starting from the top (i.e. your head!) and working your way down towards your feet.

You could also play with the gap between your ‘real’ self as a poet and the version of yourself you present in the poem. In Raymond Antrobus’s ‘I want the confidence of,’ for example, the speaker lists images of the confidence they wish they had, including the confidence ‘of Salvador Dali in a 1950s McDonald’s advert’ and ‘a coffee bean in the body.’ 

If you fancy a challenge, set a timer for three minutes and see how many you can come up with. Don’t worry too much about sounding sophisticated or ‘poetic’—it’s often the images that ping in your brain out of nowhere which make for the most interesting poems!

Prompt 1: repetition, repetition, repetition…

Self-portraits don’t just evoke what we look like. Looking beyond someone’s physical appearance can give us a window into their background. 

Plenty of us will have had the experience of people asking ‘where are you from?’ when they’re trying to get to know you, often expecting a single country as your straightforward answer. In Dean Atta’s poem ‘ I Come From ,’ the speaker plays with this question and repeats it at the beginning of each line, generating a list of images to give the reader a picture of their culture and their childhood:

I come from shepherd’s pie and Sunday roast, jerk chicken and stuffed vine leaves… I come from jet fuel and fresh coconut water. I come from crossing oceans to find myself. I come from deep issues and shallow solutions.

While the images Atta uses range widely, the repeated ‘I come from’ brings us back to the beating heart of the poem. Similarly, in ‘ Wind in a Box ,’ Terrance Hayes repeats the phrase ‘I want,’ creating what Sara Elkamel calls ‘a collage of the self by way of an anaphora of desires.’

 I want the pepper’s fury and the salt’s tenderness. I want the virtue of the evening rain, but not its gossip.

Write a self-portrait poem where every line, or stanza, returns to the same word or phrase. You could use the phrase ‘I come from,’ or something else. Here are some ideas:

• ‘I wish I was’
• ‘I want’
• ‘I should’
• ‘I used to’
• ‘I see myself in’
• ‘People say that I’

Try writing your poem using one of these repeating phrases, then swapping it out for another when you come to editing the poem. Does that change the tone of your self-portrait? 

Prompt 2: Self-Portrait as… someone else

Sometimes it can be easier to write self-portraits if we temporarily take on another character.

Read Ellora Sutton’s ‘ Self-Portrait as Rapunzel, in which the Tower Represents Grief ’. The poet takes on the voice and story of the character Rapunzel, but in doing so she explores themes that go beyond the original story:

All my stars fell palms-first into the thorns outside my small glassless window. No door, no stairs. I just found myself, there. My thimble. My long smoking rifle and I, the smoke softly ceasing to exist. It takes seventy years to wash my hair.

Similarly, Tarfia Faizullah draws on the voice of a mythological Greek goddess in ‘ Self-Portrait as Artemis ,’ whereas in ‘ Self-Portrait as Kendrick Lamar, Laughing to the Bank ’ Ashanti Anderson takes on the character of the rapper. 

Write a poem where you take on the voice of another character, which could be a fictional character, a historical figure, a celebrity, or even an alternate version of yourself.  Think carefully about the voice you’re taking on: are you relying on stereotypes about a community you don’t belong to? If you’re not sure if the character you’ve chosen is appropriate, check with a friend or a trusted adult. 

Prompt 3: Self-Portrait as… something else

You could also play around with personification here, by taking on the voice of a physical object in your poem. In ‘ Self-Portrait as Map ,’ for example, poet Safia Elhillo reimagines the surface of a map’s body as marked by borders and political boundaries:

Today I draw thick black lines around my eyes & they are a country…

Have a think about objects that feel important to you: what would a self-portrait from the point of view of a mirror, or a bowl of your favourite food, or a treasured pair of trainers look like?

You could even incorporate elements of the natural landscape around you into your self-portrait, as Helen Mort suggested in the ‘I am the Universe’ challenge.  She offers some opening phrases to get you started: 

• Behind me is….
• I am made of….
• Inside the photograph…
• Look at me…

Likewise, in ‘ Self-Portrait ,’ Afaa Michael Weaver also uses nature as a lens through to view himself, starting ‘I see myself in the shadows of a leaf…’ 

If you’re looking for more examples of what a self-portrait poem could look like, check out this list by the Academy of American Poets.

A free online poetry workshop about self-portraits

As part of this challenge, we ran a free writing workshop for 14-25 year olds on Sunday 19 November. This workshop will help you dive deeper into self-portrait poems, and may even inspire your entry to this challenge… If you’d like to access the recording , please email [email protected] with ‘Self-Portrait Challenge Workshop’ in the subject line.

Selected poets will be published on Young Poets Network and sent an exclusive Young Poets Network notebook, as well as poetry goodies including books and posters.

How to enter

This challenge is for writers aged up to 25 based anywhere in the world. The deadline is 23:59 GMT, Sunday 17 December 2023. You can send a poem, or poems, written down, or as video or audio files. If you are submitting video or audio files, please also submit a text version. Please note: while this is a challenge asking you to create a self-portrait, we’re looking for  poems , not drawings or paintings!

We are using Submittable to accept submissions to this challenge. Please use this link to submit your poems . You will need to make a free Submittable account to submit in this way. Using Submittable helps our team to administrate and process entries more quickly.

Please use Submittable if you can. But if you have any problems submitting via Submittable, don’t worry! You can still enter by email.

If you are sending a written version of your poem, please type it into the body of your email. If you are sending a video or audio file, please attach it to the email (making sure it’s no bigger than 4MB or it won’t come through) or send us a link to where we can see/hear it. Send your poem(s) to [email protected] with your name, date of birth/age, gender, the county (or, if you’re not from the UK, the country) you live in, and where you found out about this challenge (e.g. Twitter, YPN email etc.). In the email subject line please write ‘Self-portrait challenge’. If you are aged 12 or younger on 17 December 2023, you will need to ask a parent/guardian to complete this permission form . Otherwise, we unfortunately cannot consider your entry due to data protection laws .

We welcome entries from schools and youth groups . Use this class entry form to enter students from your class or group and submit their poems via email to [email protected] in a single attachment if possible.

If you would like us to add you to the Young Poets Network mailing list, include ‘add me to the mailing list’ in the subject line of the email. If you would like us to confirm that we’ve received your entry, include ‘confirm receipt’ in the subject line. You may refuse to provide information about yourself.

Please be aware that Young Poets Network is for young people from any age up to 25, so we are unlikely to publish works on this website that contain graphic or upsetting imagery that is inappropriate for our younger members . If you are not sure whether your poem contains such content, you are of course welcome to submit it anyway for us to read.  If your poem is chosen as a winner, we reserve the right to suggest some edits and/or include content warnings and/or not to publish explicit content. Remember you are welcome to submit as many poems as you like for free.

By entering, you give permission for Young Poets Network and The Poetry Society and their partners to reproduce your poem in print and online in perpetuity if you are among the winning poets of this challenge, though copyright remains with you. Please do be sure to check through the general Terms and Conditions for YPN challenges as well.

If you require this information in an alternative format (such as Easy Read, Braille, Large Print or screenreader friendly formats), or need any assistance with your entry, please contact us at [email protected] .

30 thoughts on “ The Self-Portrait Challenge ”

Hi, do you have to use the prompts provided? Or can you do a self portrait poem that doesn’t follow one of those forms? Thanks. 🙂

You’re welcome to submit a poem that doesn’t necessarily follow these prompts, as long as it’s a self-portrait poem. These prompts are designed to kickstart your imagination and give you a jumping off point for your poem, or poems.

Happy writing! Cia at Young Poets Network

Hi there, I was wondering if you welcome simultaneous submissions for these challenges? Thanks!

Simultaneous submissions are welcome for YPN challenges, as long as you let us know and withdraw your entry if it’s published elsewhere.

Happy writing!

Cia at Young Poets Network

Hi! Can we enter under a pen name?

Yes, you can submit under a pen name–please make a note of this when you enter via Submittable.

Hi, can we submit multiple entries? And if so, is there a limit?

Hi Alberta,

You can submit as many poems as you like.

Hi! When will winners be announced?

We hope to announce the winners within a few weeks of the deadline!

Best wishes,

how to enter?

To enter, follow this link to Submittable: https://thepoetrysociety.submittable.com/submit/0246578d-c8a1-4eff-a727-52cec4c7c203/the-self-portrait-challenge-on-young-poets-network

Best of luck! Cia at Young Poets Network

Hello! How many winners will be announced?

We’re not sure yet as it will depend on the submissions, but we normally award a first, second and third prize, plus between 1-7 commendations.

Hi, just wondering – is there a word count?

There’s no word count or limit. We can’t wait to read your poem, or poems!

Best of luck, Cia at Young Poets Network

Can we use a pen-name in the name section?

Yes, you can submit under a pen name! Please make a note of this when you enter via Submittable (i.e. put in brackets ‘pen name’).

Can I enter a poem that I’ve posted on a blogging website previously?

Poems entered into our challenges cannot have been published anywhere, in print or online, even on your own blogs or social media. We hope our challenges will inspire new writing from you!

Hi! If we would like to send multiple poems, is it best to submit them all together or individually?

Please submit your poems together–you can do this on Submittable, or via email.

All the best, Cia at Young Poets Network

Hi! Just wondering the title of our poem has to start with “Self Portrait …” ? Thank you!

Hi Trinity,

Thanks for your comment. No, your poem doesn’t necessarily have to use ‘Self Portrait…’ in its title–just as long as it’s a self-portrait poem in its content!

Can the poem also be specifically reffering to the mental side rather than physical or does it have to include physical aspects of myself too?

It’s completely up to you how you approach writing your self-portrait poem! You might find it easier to ground your poem in images, rather than relying on the abstract–the prompts outlined in this challenge will help you with this.

Happy writing, Cia at Young Poets Network

How do I publish the poem

We’re not a publishing house per se, but we do publish the winners of each challenge on YPN: scroll up to the ‘How to enter’ section of this challenge to find out more.

You might also find these resources helpful: https://ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk/features/how-to-publish-your-poetry-putting-together-the-first-book/ https://ypn.poetrysociety.org.uk/features/our-top-tips-for-submitting-your-work/

This is a proper cheeky question, but my nan always said if you don’t ask, you don’t get! I saw this competition on TikTok a few days ago, not even thinking about the deadline, which has of course now passed. Is there any leeway at all? I totally understand why not if not, but it’s always worth the ask :))

The Self-Portrait Challenge is now closed for entries. However, you might be interested in entering our new Youth Culture challenge , which is open until February 2024!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• Self-portrait as a sky that does not know you Amelie Simon Winner, The Self-Portrait Challenge
• A Horse Swaps Bodies With His Rider, and Goes Home to Her Childhood Bedroom Beth Simcock Winner, The Self-Portrait Challenge
• self-portrait as “grwm: 5 am morning routine” Chelsea Zhu Winner, The Self-Portrait Challenge
• Okay, If You Really Want to Know Harper Walton Winner, The Self-Portrait Challenge
• Self-portrait with you Ez Heller Commended, The Self-Portrait Challenge
• Makeup Sophie Sutherland Commended, The Self-Portrait Challenge
• self-portrait with a confession Jack Turner Commended, The Self-Portrait Challenge
• Self-portrait as City Lanternfly Kyla Guimaraes Commended, The Self-Portrait Challenge

• Free Samples
• Premium Essays
• Editing Services Editing Proofreading Rewriting
• Extra Tools Essay Topic Generator Thesis Generator Citation Generator GPA Calculator Study Guides Donate Paper
• Essay Writing Help
• About Us About Us Testimonials FAQ
• Studentshare
• Visual Arts & Film Studies
• The Self-Portrait with Vanitas Symbols by David Bailly

The Self-Portrait with Vanitas Symbols by David Bailly - Essay Example

• Subject: Visual Arts & Film Studies
• Type: Essay
• Level: Ph.D.
• Pages: 3 (750 words)
• Downloads: 36
• Author: garryfeil

Extract of sample "The Self-Portrait with Vanitas Symbols by David Bailly"

As much space is given to the objects as the subject of the painting, which is, ostensibly, the young man sitting beside the table. The interesting thing to note is that the young man (the painter himself) is not the only person in this ‘self-portrait’; he is holding a miniature painting in his hand with the depiction of a much older person in it. So, can this really be called a self-portrait?             It would be implausible to consider that the objects in the painting exist in isolation.

These symbols of ‘vanitas’ have been selected to illustrate a uniform theme of the “swift passage of time and the terrible instability of life” (Duffy, 2012) in the painting. A style of painting popular in the 16th and 17th century, vanitas paintings were also known by another name of ‘memento mori' (remember death). All the symbols in the painting are objects in a transient state of life, all of them together acting as a metaphor for life itself which is always in a state of motion bound towards a certain end.

Lighted up candles eventually lose their flame; flowers wilt, soap bubbles can be broken even by a speck of dust. The skull, the pearls, and coins represent the changing nature of life and wealth and prestige respectively. These can be lost due to a number of circumstances and within the blink of an eye. Nothing is permanent, especially the movement of time which is aptly embodied here by the hourglass.             This idea about the temporary state of bringing us back to the subject of the painting.

The young man is the artist himself but a cursory check lets the viewer know that that this, not the artist as he was at the time the painting was made. Bailly painted the portrait when he was 67 years old, indicating that while the young man is how the artist used to be some years prior, the ‘real’ portrait is the miniature the man is holding (Kosara, 2007). That painting within the painting shows Bailly in the state he was at the time. The contrast between young and old is striking and this contrast not only magnifies the theme intended for the painting but adds another layer of meaning and possible interpretation to the whole setting.

            The young man looks contemplative; possibly, the painting in his hand was made to portray his own vision about his future self. His older self is decaying, without the energy and drive of youth and this natural, inevitable process of change is not something that any man looks forward to with pleasure. Surrounded by symbols of vanitas, his imagination would be further encouraged to think in terms of the transiency of life and all things associated with it.

It is a sobering thought. And yet it can be hard for the human psyche to adequately grasp the implications of this as relating to self. The young man is in contemplation but not in throes of despair.               Thinking of the perspective of the painter at the age of 67, however, we can decipher the painting in a different light. Though everything in the painting shows the passing of time and the changes that are brought with it, the subtle indication is that there is one thing that is unaffected by this natural process- the soul of the artist.

The artist’s body might be aged now and his physical appearance has changed but his perception of himself is still that of a young man. Time has not affected the vitality of his thoughts or the strength of his passions- in nature, he is the same the young man at his peak and will remain so till the very end of his life. After all, even as the body decays the mind remains unmarked for a much longer time. Our own perception of self can be much more important than what the world sees and this importance is shown through the prominent presence of the younger self over the older (real) self.

This is the artist’s true self-portrait if time had not impacted his life so.

• Cited: 6 times
• Copy Citation Citation is copied Copy Citation Citation is copied Copy Citation Citation is copied

CHECK THESE SAMPLES OF The Self-Portrait with Vanitas Symbols by David Bailly

Emblazoned symbols of decadence, self-portraits. journal, the use of mirrors in 16th century paintings, symbols in van eyck's portrait of giovanni arnolfini and his wife, history of selfie & self portrait, the differences between a self-portrait and a selfie, self-portrait collage, selfie and self-portrait.

• TERMS & CONDITIONS
• PRIVACY POLICY
• COOKIES POLICY

Turmoil at NPR after editor rips network for political bias

The public radio network is being targeted by conservative activists over the editor’s essay, which many staffers say is misleading and inaccurate.

Uri Berliner had worked at NPR for a quarter-century when he wrote the essay that would abruptly end his tenure. On April 9, the Free Press published 3,500 words from Berliner, a senior business editor, about how the public radio network is guilty of journalistic malpractice — for conforming to a politically liberal worldview at the expense of fairness and accuracy.

“It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent, but during most of my tenure here, an open-minded, curious culture prevailed,” Berliner wrote. “We were nerdy, but not knee-jerk, activist, or scolding. In recent years, however, that has changed.”

The essay, whose arguments were disputed by NPR management and many staffers, plunged the network into a week-long public controversy.

Last week NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, indirectly referenced Berliner’s essay in a note to staff that NPR also published online. “Asking a question about whether we’re living up to our mission should always be fair game: after all, journalism is nothing if not hard questions,” she wrote. “Questioning whether our people are serving our mission with integrity, based on little more than the recognition of their identity, is profoundly disrespectful, hurtful, and demeaning.”

The drama reached a pinnacle Wednesday, when Berliner resigned while taking a shot at Maher.

In his resignation letter, Berliner called NPR “a great American institution” that should not be defunded. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism,” he wrote in the letter, posted on his X account. “But I cannot work in a newsroom where I am disparaged by a new CEO whose divisive views confirm the very problems I cite in my Free Press essay.”

Berliner’s comments have angered many of his now-former colleagues, who dismissed as inaccurate his depiction of their workplace and who say his faulty criticisms have been weaponized against them.

Berliner’s essay is titled “ I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust .” On its face, it seemed to confirm the worst suspicions held by NPR’s critics on the right: that the legendary media organization had an ideological, progressive agenda that dictates its journalism. The Free Press is an online publication started by journalist Bari Weiss, whose own resignation from the New York Times in 2020 was used by conservative politicians as evidence that the Times stifled certain ideas and ideologies; Weiss accused the Times of catering to a rigid, politically left-leaning worldview and of refusing to defend her against online “bullies” when she expressed views to the contrary. Berliner’s essay was accompanied by several glossy portraits and a nearly hour-long podcast interview with Weiss. He also went on NewsNation, where the host Chris Cuomo — who had been cast out from CNN for crossing ethical lines to help his governor-brother — called Berliner a “whistleblower.”

Initially, Berliner was suspended for not getting approval for doing work for another publication. NPR policy requires receiving written permission from supervisors “for all outside freelance and journalistic work,” according to the employee handbook.

An NPR spokeswoman said Wednesday that the network does not comment on personnel matters. Berliner declined The Washington Post’s request for further comment.

In an interview Tuesday with NPR’s David Folkenflik — whose work is also criticized in the Free Press essay — Berliner said “we have great journalists here. If they shed their opinions and did the great journalism they’re capable of, this would be a much more interesting and fulfilling organization for our listeners.”

Berliner’s future at NPR became an open question. NPR leaders were pressed by staff in meetings this week as to why he was still employed there. And some reporters made clear they didn’t want to be edited by Berliner anymore because they now questioned his journalistic judgment, said one prominent NPR journalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to preserve relationships. “How are you supposed to have honest debates about coverage if you think it’s going to be fodder for the point he’s trying to make?” the staffer said.

Berliner had written that “there’s an unspoken consensus” about stories to pursue at NPR — “of supposed racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse, Israel doing something bad, and the dire threat of Republican policies” — and that the network operated without friction, “almost like an assembly line.”

Several prominent NPR journalists countered that impression. “We have strong, heated editorial debates every day to try and get the most appropriate language and nuanced reporting in a landscape that is divisive and difficult to work in as a journalist,” Leila Fadel, host of “Morning Edition,” told The Post. “Media and free independent press are often under attack for the fact-based reporting that we do.” She called Berliner’s essay “a bad-faith effort” and a “factually inaccurate take on our work that was filled with omissions to back his arguments.”

Other staffers noted that Berliner did not seek comment from NPR for his piece. No news organization is above reproach, “Weekend Edition” host Ayesha Rascoe told The Post, but someone should not “be able to tear down an entire organization’s work without any sort of response or context provided, or pushback.” There are many legitimate critiques to make of NPR’s coverage, she added, “but the way this has been done — it’s to invalidate all the work NPR does.”

NPR is known to have a very collegial culture, and the manner in which Berliner aired his criticism — perhaps even more than the substance of it — is what upset so many of his co-workers, according to one staffer.

“Morning Edition” host Steve Inskeep, writing on his Substack on Tuesday , fact-checked or contextualized several of the arguments Berliner made. For instance: Berliner wrote that he once asked “why we keep using that word that many Hispanics hate — Latinx.” Inskeep said he searched 90 days of NPR’s content and found “Latinx” was used nine times — “usually by a guest” — compared to the nearly 400 times “Latina” and “Latino” were used.

“This article needed a better editor,” Inskeep wrote. “I don’t know who, if anyone, edited Uri’s story, but they let him publish an article that discredited itself. … A careful read of the article shows many sweeping statements for which the writer is unable to offer evidence.”

This week conservative activist Christopher Rufo — who rose to fame for targeting “critical race theory,” and whose scrutiny of Harvard President Claudine Gay preceded her resignation — set his sights on Maher, surfacing old social media posts she wrote before she joined the news organization. In one 2020 tweet, she referred to Trump as a “deranged racist.” Others posts show her wearing a Biden hat, or wistfully daydreaming about hanging out with Kamala D. Harris. Rufo has called for Maher’s resignation.

“In America everyone is entitled to free speech as a private citizen,” Maher wrote in a statement to The Post, when asked about the social media posts. “What matters is NPR’s work and my commitment as its CEO: public service, editorial independence, and the mission to serve all of the American public.”

Maher, who started her job as NPR CEO last month, previously was the head of the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. An NPR spokesperson said in a statement Tuesday that Maher “was not working in journalism at the time” of the social media posts; she was “exercising her first amendment right to express herself like any other American citizen,” and “the CEO is not involved in editorial decisions.”

In a statement, an NPR spokesperson described the outcry over Maher’s old posts as “a bad faith attack that follows an established playbook, as online actors with explicit agendas work to discredit independent news organizations.”

Meanwhile, some NPR staffers want a more forceful defense of NPR journalism by management. An internal letter — signed by about 50 NPR staffers as of Wednesday afternoon — called on Maher and NPR editor in chief Edith Chapin to “publicly and directly” call out Berliner’s “factual inaccuracies and elisions.”

In the essay, Berliner accuses NPR of mishandling three major stories: the allegations of the 2016 Trump campaign’s collusion with Russia, the origins of the coronavirus , and the authenticity and relevance of Hunter Biden’s laptop. Berliner’s critics note that he didn’t oversee coverage of these stories. They also say that his essay indirectly maligns employee affinity groups — he name-checks groups for Muslim, Jewish, queer and Black employees, which he wrote “reflect broader movement in the culture of people clustering together based on ideology or a characteristic at birth.” (Berliner belonged to the group for Jewish employees, according to an NPR staffer with knowledge of membership.) He also writes that he found NPR’s D.C. newsroom employed 87 registered Democrats and zero Republicans in editorial positions in 2021. His critics say this figure lacks proper context.

Tony Cavin, NPR’s managing editor of standards and practices, told The Post that “I have no idea where he got that number,” that NPR’s newsroom has 660 employees, and that “I know a number of our hosts and staff are registered as independents.” That includes Inskeep, who, on his Substack, backed up Cavin’s assessment.

Berliner also wrote that, during the administration of Donald Trump , NPR “hitched our wagon” to top Trump antagonist Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) by interviewing him 25 times about Trump and Russia. Cavin told The Post NPR aired 900 interviews with lawmakers during the same period of time, “so that’s 3 percent. He’s a business reporter, he knows about statistics and it seems he’s selectively using statistics.”

Cavin said some inside the organization agree with points Berliner made, even if they “don’t like the way he went about it. The irony of this is it tells you how diverse as an organization we are, in ideological terms.”

“There are a few bits of truth in this,” NPR international correspondent Eyder Peralta wrote on Facebook. But he said the essay “uses a selecting reading to serve the author’s own world views” and paints with “too broad a brush.”

“I have covered wars, I have been thrown in jail for my work,” Peralta told The Post, “and for him to question part of what is in our nature, which is intellectual curiosity and that we follow our noses where they lead us, that hurts. And I think that damages NPR.”

Some staffers have also been attacked online since the essay’s publication. Rascoe, who, as a Black woman host for NPR, says she’s no stranger to online vitriol, but one message after Berliner’s essay labeled her as a “DEI hire” who has “never read a book in her life.”

“What stung about this one was it came on the basis of a supposed colleague’s op-ed,” whose words were “being used as fodder to attack me,” Rascoe said. “And my concern is not about me, but all the younger journalists who don’t have the platform I have and who will be attacked and their integrity questioned simply on the basis of who they are.”

NPR, like much of the media industry, has struggled in recent years with a declining audience and a tough ad market. NPR laid off 100 workers in 2023, one of its largest layoffs ever , citing fewer sponsorships and a projected $30 million decline in revenue.

Going forward, some staffers worry about the ramifications of Berliner’s essay and the reactions to it. The open letter to Maher and Chapin said that “sending the message that a public essay is the easiest way to make change is setting a bad precedent, regardless of the ideologies being expressed.”

An earlier version of this article included a reference to Uri Berliner's Free Press essay in which Berliner cited voter registration data for editorial employees of NPR's D.C. newsroom. The article has been updated to clarify that this data was from 2021, not the present day.

• A history of CNN’s Laura Coates, who calmly narrated a self-immolation April 20, 2024 A history of CNN’s Laura Coates, who calmly narrated a self-immolation April 20, 2024
• Are some reporters putting Trump jurors at risk? April 18, 2024 Are some reporters putting Trump jurors at risk? April 18, 2024
• Turmoil at NPR after editor rips network for political bias April 17, 2024 Turmoil at NPR after editor rips network for political bias April 17, 2024

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Lourdes Portillo, Oscar-Nominated Documentary Filmmaker, Dies at 80

Her films centered on Latin American experiences and received wide acclaim.

By Orlando Mayorquín

Lourdes Portillo, an Oscar-nominated Mexican-born documentary filmmaker whose work explored Latin American social issues, died on Saturday at her home in San Francisco. She was 80.

Her death was confirmed by her friend Soco Aguilar. No cause was given.

One of Ms. Portillo’s best-known works is her 1994 documentary “The Devil Never Sleeps,” a murder-mystery in which she investigates the strange death of her multimillionaire uncle, whose widow claimed he had died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In 2020, the Library of Congress selected the film for the National Film Registry.

“Using vintage snapshots, old home movies and interviews, the film builds a biographical portrait of Oscar Ruiz Almeida, a Mexican rancher who amassed a fortune exporting vegetables to the United States and went on to become a powerful politician and businessman,” Stephen Holden, a Times movie critic, wrote in a 1995 review of the film.

The documentary had the tenor of a telenovela and presented open questions about Mr. Ruiz Almeida’s mysterious life and death and the people who could have had a motive for the murder.

“The more Oscar is discussed, the more enigmatic he seems,” Mr. Holden wrote.

Ms. Portillo crafted the film's story line from the information her mother relayed over the phone while Ms. Portillo was living in New York, she said in a talk at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles last year.

The museum screened the movie last year as part of a series honoring Ms. Portillo and other filmmakers who have made significant contributions to cinema.

Her breakthrough work was the 1985 Oscar- and Emmy-nominated documentary “The Mothers of The Plaza of Mayo,” which followed a group of mothers in Argentina who had sought answers to the disappearance of their sons, who were taken by a repressive regime.

Lourdes Portillo was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, on Nov. 11, 1943. She lived in Mexico until she was 13, when she emigrated to Los Angeles with her family, Ms. Aguilar said.

She racked up dozens of awards and nominations across 18 films produced over four decades, starting in 1979, according to IMDb .

She was known for her authentic boundary-pushing style.

“Portillo’s works defy categorization, slipping easily between docufiction, experimental video and the melodrama of telenovelas,” the Academy Museum said last year .

Before her death, Ms. Portillo was working on a film called “Looking At Ourselves,” which won a grant from the Sundance Institute last year.

Ms. Portillo is survived by her three sons, Carlos, Karim and Antonio Scarlata; four siblings and five grandchildren, according to her son, Carlos Scarlata.

Ms. Portillo’s last work, “State of Grace,” was released in 2020, a personal animated short film about a dream in which Ms. Portillo confronts her desperation after having been diagnosed with an illness.

“The only thing that enabled me to gather my strength was a vivid dream,” Ms. Portillo said on her website. “In the dream I saw my family and ancestors around me in a circle, chanting for my healing, it filled me with tenderness for all who had loved me.”

Orlando Mayorquín is a breaking news reporter, based in New York, and a member of the 2023-24 Times Fellowship class , a program for journalists early in their careers. More about Orlando Mayorquín