Portrait of the artist as a young girl(s)
- Artist: Allison Katz
- Date: 2022
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 2301 × 1501 × 37 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is the “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl(s)” by Allison Katz, created in 2022. It’s a massive oil‑on‑canvas measuring roughly 230 cm by 150 cm, so you can almost step inside the scene. The painting shows a young girl in a striking red hooded coat and black boots – the same image repeated five times across the canvas, three of which are exact duplicates of the face. The composition comes from a family photograph taken around 1987‑88, captured with a multiple‑exposure effect that Katz was fascinated by even though she had no memory of posing for it.
The repetition invites you to linger on the central figure, noticing how the same image vibrates across the surface, echoing the fluidity of memory. Katz intended the work for the 59th Venice Biennale, and she weaves in references to the film *Don’t Look Now* and the folk tale of Red Riding Hood. The cadmium‑red coat recalls the intensity of John Singer Sargent’s portraits, hinting at themes of transition, puberty, and the passage from childhood to adolescence.
It was purchased with funds from Simon Nixon and family in 2022 and is on display at Tate Britain. The title’s plural “girls” deliberately reminds viewers of the repeated surface, making the painting both a self‑portrait and a meditation on how we perceive and re‑experience images.
See it in person
Portrait of the artist as a young girl(s) is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, 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.
