Self-Portrait

Bishop was the only full-time female instructor at the Art Students League when she taught there from 1936 to 1937 and was the first woman to hold an executive position at the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Originally from Cincinnati, Bishop moved to New York City at age 16. She made this self-portrait two years after taking up an art studio in the bustling Union Square, which she maintained for the next six decades. Although this self-portrait comes off as withdrawn, it coincides with a turn in her practice from intimate subjects, such as nudes, to characters in the urban environment around her, mostly girls and women.