To coincide with the opening of Master Drawings New York, Liss Llewellyn is delighted to present an online exhibition of museum quality self-portraits on paper.

The exhibition features a rare and superlative work by Alan Sorrell, Self-portrait Nov. 1928. Sorrell undertook this self-portrait one month after he had arrived in Rome on his two-year scholarship at the British School. He portrays himself in his studio; while the intensely observed and sharply delineated drawing demonstrates his appreciation of Renaissance masters such as Masaccio and Piero della Francesca. Only a small body of work by Sorrell survives from this period, though this early self-portrait, a masterly fusion of nagging self-doubt and youthful self confidence hints at the emerging power of his talent.

The exhibition also includes a self-portrait by Evelyn Dunbar at her drawing board (illustrated above), produced while she was still a teenager. This work belongs to a series of youthful self-portraits the artist made, and a related example can be seen in the collection of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.