Dorothea Tanning, Self-Portrait, 1944

In our new issue, novelist Sophie Mackintosh reveals how a self-portrait by Dorothea Tanning, depicting a lone woman facing an uncertain future, helped her to discover the self-confidence she needed. “When I saw the painting I felt at once a deep sense of comfort and possibility,” she writes. “The woman … is a woman on the edge of something, a woman earnestly searching for something, and I was moved by how openly Tanning had shared this image of herself. There was a sincerity that seemed revelatory, especially to me, trapped in my own self-doubt, often feeling a kind of shame about my ambitions and how my writing fell short of them.” Purchase Issue 47 from Elephant Kiosk to read on.