From review:
“The moment when a man comes to paint himself – he may do it only two or three times in a lifetime, perhaps never – has in the nature of things a special significance.” So Lawrence Gowing wrote, in an introduction to a 1962 exhibition of British self-portraits. And he is right: self-portraits, whether of men or women, have a particular call on our attention.
No mention of the “selfie” is made in Hall’s discussion of the modern and contemporary period, but he does note that self-portraits today flood the internet and that children at school are required to make them.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Self-Portrait-A-Cultural-History/dp/050023910X
