Photographers' Self-Portraits

From the New York Times:

NY Auction to Sell
Famous Scribbled Self-Portraits

September 18, 2009

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) -- Self-portraits scribbled by Truman Capote, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and other famous writers, athletes and artists that were collected by a Manhattan bookseller are going on the auction block next week.

Burt Britton's hobby began in the mid-1960s with Norman Mailer while Britton was bartending at the legendary Village Vanguard. The author was the last customer late one night and was refusing to leave, according to the auction catalog's notes.

''What do you want from me, kid?'' Mailer repeatedly asked.

Britton says he finally handed the Pulitzer Prize writer a piece of paper and told him, ''Do a self-portrait for me, drink your drink, and let's call it a night.''

He doesn't know why he made such a demand, but that ''began all this madness'' -- a decades-long collection of mostly quick, ink-on-paper drawings from the famous and soon-to-be famous, Britton says in the notes.

Bloomsbury Auctions in New York will offer 213 lots of the self-portraits on Thursday. Some are crude and funny caricatures; others depict a close likeness to the subject.

Mailer's abstract angular profile with curly hair is expected to bring $2,000 to $3,000.

''Rarely do you get to see authors looking inward this way and expressing themselves in drawings, let alone making portraits of themselves,'' said Bloomsbury rare books and manuscript specialist Peter Costanzo.

Also interesting, he said, are the sketches by artists and photographers who identified themselves with the tools of their trade. Photographer Andre Kertesz, for example, drew himself as a camera with a single human eye and inscribed it, ''I am the camera.''

Britton's later jobs at Strand Book Store in Lower Manhattan, where he was vice president for 10 years, and Books & Company on Madison Avenue as co-owner both afforded him opportunities to meet celebrated authors.

© AP

I was wondering what that self-portrait of Kertesz looked like so I got the catalog and it turns out that there were a number of photographers' self-portraits up for auction. Here they are, in reverse alphabetical order. The auction is Thursday, September 24.

Deborah Turbeville
One of a lot of 5 self-portraits which includes
Duane Michals, Ralph Gibson, Danny Lyon and Bruce Davidson.

W. Eugene Smith
Charcoal on paper, 13.75 x 11 inches

Gordon Parks
Ink on paper, 1974, 10 x 6.25 inches

Arnold Newman
Ink on one large sheet, 1976, 23 x 11.5 inches

J. H. Lartigue
Pen on paper, 1976, 10.5 x 8.25 inches
(There is another by Lartigue in this lot but it's not pictured in the catalog.)

André Kertész
Ink on lined paper, 1975, 9 x 6 inches

Lotte Jacobi
Ink on “Books & Co.” paper bag, 1979, 11.5 x 7.25 inches

Harry Callahan
Chalk-pencil on tissue, 7 x 10 inches

Brassaï
Pen on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches

Richard Avedon
Collage on card, 9.75 x 7.5 inches

Berenice Abbott
Ink on paper, 10 x 7 inches

And for Mr. Whiskets:

Cormac McCarthy
Pencil on paper, 11 x 8.5 inches