Figuring Self: Portraits from the Collection presents a survey of portraits from the museum’s founding collection in dialogue with more contemporary acquisitions. Selections include a grouping of works from the turn of the 16th century to the early 2000s, including paintings, photographs and sculptural, mixed-media installations.

Figuring Self explores the genre of portraiture, defined by art historian John Gere, as an image ‘in which the artist is engaged with the personality of his sitter and is preoccupied with his or her characterization as an individual.’ The works on view exemplify how the genre has been utilized throughout history to the present day as a means to visually assert one’s identity, status or personhood.