Self-portrait

Fildes's 1911 self-portrait, held by the Royal Academy of Arts, was painted when he was seventy years old and constitutes a late career stock-taking by one of the Academy's most distinguished members. Fildes had been elected a Royal Academician in 1887 and was a central figure in the institution's exhibitions and governance for decades. A self-portrait donated or exhibited at the Royal Academy was a formal contribution to the institution's collection of its own members — the Academy held such portraits as a record of the body's history. By 1911 Fildes had a career spanning four decades, from his early Social Realist controversy to his position as the monarchy's principal portraitist. The self-portrait in his final active decade carries the authority of long practice and the reflectiveness appropriate to late career self-examination.

The seventy-year-old Fildes applies decades of accumulated technical mastery to the particular challenge of depicting age — the softening of facial contours, the receding of colour in hair and brows, the quality of aged skin. The paint handling is assured and economical, showing no loss of control despite his age.