This richly illustrated book features an introduction by the National Portrait Gallery's chief curator and nearly 150 insightful entries on key self-portraits in the museum's collection. Eye to I provides readers with an overview of self-portraiture while revealing the intersections that exist between art, life, and self-representation. Drawing primarily from the museum's collection, Eye to I explores how American artists have portrayed themselves over the past two centuries. The book shows that while each individual approaches self-portraiture under unique circumstances, all of their representations raise important questions about self-perception and self-reflection. Sometimes artists choose to reveal intimate details of their inner lives. Other times they use the genre to obfuscate their true selves or invent alter egos. Today, with the proliferation of selfies and the contemporary focus on identity, it is time to reassess the significance of the self-portrait.

John F. Kennedy, Frank O'Hara, Allen Ginsberg, Merce Cunningham, and Fairfield Porter were just some of the figures who sat for portraits by Elaine de Kooning. Famous for her marriage to the Abstract Expressionist Willem de Kooning, Elaine was herself a groundbreaking artist and writer who challenged many conventions during her career. Although she portrayed women, she was most engaged with portraits of men, sometimes painting multiple portraits of her subjects, in order to explore and capture their most compelling likeness. She focused intently on her subjects - as she wrote in 1965, "Like falling in love painting a portrait is a concentration on one particular person and no one else will do." This insightful book explores de Kooning's portraits as well as her artistic process and her position in the rise of Postmodernism. Illustrated throughout with full-colour reproductions of paintings, drawings and archival photos, this book is an important contribution to the literature on Abstract Expressionism, women artists and feminism during a transformative period and will also appeal to lovers of painting of all kinds. Published in association with the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.