Anna Zinkeisen
- Artist: Anna Katrina Zinkeisen
- Date: circa 1944
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 29 5/8 in. x 24 5/8 in. (752 mm x 625 mm)
- Portrays: Anna Katrina Zinkeisen
- Museum: The National Portrait Gallery
- Collection record: The National Portrait Gallery website
Listen to the free audio guide
About this artwork
Before you is a self‑portrait by Anna Zinkeisen, painted on canvas in the mid‑1940s. She faces us with a confident gaze; her left hand extends to hold brushes while her right arm hangs relaxed. Notice how the bright light from the left side draws attention to that brush‑clasping arm and to the small enamelled Maltese Cross on the bracelet around her wrist – a mark of her membership in the St John’s Ambulance Brigade, for which she volunteered as a casualty nurse at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington. The scene was probably painted in the hospital’s disused operating theatre, where her work with patients and her own paintings overlapped. Her slightly lifted lips and relaxed brow give the portrait an easy‑going but determined mood.
See it in person
Anna Zinkeisen is in the collection of The National Portrait Gallery at St Martin's Place, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
