The self-portrait

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The painting we present today is now shown in the exhibition “Fighting for Visibility”, which provides the first extensive study dedicated to all the works in the Berlin Nationalgalerie’s collection produced by women painters and sculptors before 1919. It is a revision of the museum’s collections viewed under the important perspective of the current discourse about equal rights. The self-portrait by Sabine Lepsius from 1885 provides an insight in her individual fight for visibility while also being an example for numerous women’s fights in the art world throughout the 19th century. The daughter of the famous portrait-painter Gustav Graef, Lepsius studied painting in one of the so-called “ladies classes” in private artists’ studios. Her extraordinary self-portrait depicts the 21-year old artist in her newly chosen profession, with brush and pallet. Lepsius became a well-known portrait painter for the bourgeoisie in Berlin. But Lepsius also became a voice of the women’s rights movement. Her ambitions in art policy manifest for example in running her own salon; she also spoke at the international congress for women in Berlin in 1904 and was involved in the demand to accept women at the art academy in Berlin.

See you tomorrow :) and read about Matilda Browne, a forgotten female Impressionist here. <3