From the earliest cave paintings more than 20,000 years ago to the present day, portraiture has been an obsession of humanity. Its history has been shaped by competing impulses: a striving for likeness, the ennoblement of the subject, or a truth about the world in which the subject lived. What connects these impulses—and what the best portraiture attains—is a fusion of inner life and outer world.
The ideas and methods of artists change over time, but the concerns of the form are ever-present. From Hans Holbein the Younger's fastidious construction of the sitter's identity, to Picabia's deconstruction of the body's form, to Paul Klee's colorful abstractions, and into the photographic worlds of Man Ray and August Sander, the history of the portrait is capacious. The Modern Portrait, a new exhibition from Site:Brooklyn, seeks contemporary works in all media that engage with the portrait: as subject or as concept, as material or as metaphor.
Juried by Theadora Walsh, an art critic and poet living in New York, currently Writer and Editor at SculptureCenter. Online Exhibition: October 2, 2026 - November 2, 2026.