In her captivating memoir, “Self-Portrait,” Paul describes how her growing love for Freud seemed at first to denude her of ambition. She stopped washing her clothes and brushing her hair.

In Self-Portrait, Paul is her own subject, but so are the shifting conditions of subjecthood and objecthood, the changing relationships between the painter and the painted. 4. Popular ...

On the Shelf. Self-Portrait. By Celia Paul NYRB Books: 215 pages, $30 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.

In Self-Portrait, Paul is her own subject, but so are the shifting conditions of subjecthood and objecthood, the changing relationships between the painter and the painted. 4.