‘You can see affection, love, respect, rivalry’: what happens when artists paint each other?

Ever since Raphael included Leonardo and Michelangelo in a crowd scene of one of his works, painters have had a fascination with depicting their peers, as a new exhibition reveals

As with all genres of art, portraiture has its own set of subgenres. Aside from the standard configuration of artist and model, there is the double portrait, the group portrait, the self-portrait and so on. But one other strand habitually draws freely on all the others to create its own unique sub-subgenre: when artists are the subject of another artist’s work.

Artists painting other artists has a long and distinguished tradition: see Raphael including Leonardo and Michelangelo – and a self-portrait – in his Renaissance crowd scene masterpiece The School of Athens. This unique dynamic has remained a source of fascination for both artists and viewers ever since.