Self-portrait at the Easel, 1938

Lotte Laserstein

Narrator: At Fulltofta estate in Skåne, where Laserstein found herself in the spring of 1938 to paint the portraits of the Trolle family, she also painted her first self portrait in Sweden. Here, it is as if all worries have been whisked away. Laserstein depicts her self for the first and only time in full, as a dynamic and decisive artist at her easel. Under the open white painter’s coat, she is wearing a red cardigan, a black and white patterned scarf, and black pants. We meet an attractive and confident woman who looks straight out of the picture with a scrutinizing yet simultaneously welcoming gaze. With one hand resting in her coat pocket, she raises the brush in the air with the other, as if she is just about to measure the model in front of her before continuing with the painting on the easel. That Laserstein, who is right handed, lifts her left hand reveals that we are looking at a reflection as she is observing herself in a mirror in order to paint her own portrait.

Laserstein depicts herself before a light background that does not reveal anything about herself or where she is an artistic approach she also then used in other paintings, particularly of refugees, to portray the uncertainty and homelessness of exile. Here, in her self portrait, Laserstein instead emphasizes the attributes she needs as an artist: her easel, the hand with the brush, and her eye. In this way, the work is like an open invitation to portraiture from the artist herself. Here, Laserstein is in a phase of her life where she can finally continue to work as an artist. Under the given circumstances, she finds herself in the best possible place in existence.