A-List Authors, Artists & Thinkers Draw Self Portraits

Over the years, Burt Britton convinced A-list writers and artists to draw self-portraits of themselves. He first enticed Norman Mailer long ago, while working as a bartender at the Village Vanguard in NYC. Then came Miles Davis, Jorge Luis Borges (who was already blind), Margaret Atwood, Frank Gehry, Saul Bellow, David Hockney, Allen Ginsberg, Cormac McCarthy (see above) and a parade of others. The doodled portraits were later collected in a now out-of-print book, Self-Portrait: Book People Picture Themselves. You can still find a smaller collection online at The Daily Beast. The New York Times gives you more of the backstory on this collection here.

via Maud Newton