How to Use portraitist in a Sentence

portraitist

noun
  • The portraitist, a woman from Paris, has to take a boat and then scale a rocky cliff, art supplies strapped to her back, to get to the house.
    Elaine Blair, The New York Review of Books, 1 Dec. 2020
  • Byrne's leg bones feature in the background of a painting of Hunter by famed portraitist Joshua Reynolds.
    Lianne Kolirin, CNN, 11 Jan. 2023
  • By the age of 35, Jacques Tissot was one of the most sought-after society portraitists in Paris.
    Tobias Grey, WSJ, 12 Mar. 2020
  • Prachakul then went to work in casting — an ideal job for a future portraitist, as she was paid to look at faces.
    New York Times, 3 Feb. 2021
  • There Lange found patrons for a studio of her own and became a successful portraitist of the city’s élite.
    Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 11 May 2020
  • The couple settled in Boston, where Lee became a portraitist and William a landscape painter.
    Susan Dunne, courant.com, 7 July 2018
  • Still, the 150-plus examples of Katz’s deftness and style, both as a portraitist and as a colorist, yield certain standouts.
    Gabé Hirschowitz, Vogue, 25 Oct. 2022
  • But maybe the offending self-portraitist could give performance art a whirl?
    Karen Brill, Condé Nast Traveler, 1 Mar. 2017
  • There’s the account of Abraham Lincoln selecting Brady to be his portraitist for the 1860 election.
    Errol Morris, New York Times, 24 Oct. 2017
  • Matt was also a talented portraitist, but even that skill had its ominous side, warns Del Toro.
    Michael Ordoña, latimes.com, 17 June 2019
  • The camera shots are meditative, as if Zinn were a portraitist trying to capture the still being of these girls.
    Jessie Zinn, The New Yorker, 17 Aug. 2022
  • Loren Cameron, a transgender portraitist who captured some of the quotidian aspects of trans life, died late last year at the age of 63.
    Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times, 22 Apr. 2023
  • Dan Winters is a photographer and portraitist based in Austin, Texas.
    New York Times, 12 Nov. 2021
  • If a British portraitist is reverent he’s perceived to be doting.
    Taylor Antrim, Vogue, 9 Sep. 2022
  • Lucian Freud, Bacon’s foremost competitor—and, for many years, his best friend—was a portraitist, too.
    Joan Acocella, The New Yorker, 17 May 2021
  • The younger woman played the piano and was also an accomplished portraitist, and the duo painted together.
    Claudine Doury, Smithsonian Magazine, 20 Oct. 2020
  • Based on drawings by court portraitist François Clouet and artists in his circle, many of these characters make eye contact with the viewer.
    Judith H. Dobrzynski, WSJ, 4 Dec. 2018
  • Despite his large canvas, Rich is a gifted portraitist of his three main characters.
    New York Times, 17 Jan. 2018
  • Sofonisba, the more compelling and modern of the two, was a sensitive portraitist whose work is easy to recognize.
    Deborah Solomon, New York Times, 16 Dec. 2019
  • But on Friday, an employee noticed that something was off with the photograph, shot by renowned portraitist Yousuf Karsh.
    Mckenna Oxenden, BostonGlobe.com, 24 Aug. 2022
  • The portraits, of Marten Soolmans and Oopjen Coppit, painted in 1634, capture a married couple able to afford to commission the greatest portraitist of the era, and at the peak of his power.
    Globe Staff, BostonGlobe.com, 18 Nov. 2021
  • Wiley is best-known as the official portraitist of President Barack Obama.
    Sebastian Smee, Washington Post, 21 July 2023
  • When a woman portraitist arrives on the scene, the movie becomes a tribute to the beauty of the French coast, the often unmarked lives of everyday women in history, and the passion that simmers there.
    Aimée Lutkin, ELLE, 7 June 2022
  • Williamson’s portraitist, the British fashion illustrator David Downton, had emphasized the shadow of her cheekbones, the soft sweep of her bangs to one side, and the intensity of her smoky-eyed gaze.
    Emily Witt, The New Yorker, 14 Aug. 2019
  • Picasso was a master portraitist, and the majority of his portraits were of women, and the majority of the women were his lovers, present, past, and even, in some cases, future.
    John Banville, The New Republic, 16 Nov. 2021
  • In the nearby Moonshot Studio, middle schoolers were making zoetropes inspired by the children’s book author and pigeon portraitist Mo Willems.
    Michael Cooper, New York Times, 1 Nov. 2019
  • An 1858 view of Paris by the French portraitist and showman is usually credited as the first successful aerial photograph.
    Richard B. Woodward, WSJ, 27 Jan. 2020
  • The early American portraitist is perhaps most well-known for his unfinished portrait of George Washington.
    Lauren Daley, BostonGlobe.com, 15 May 2018
  • Dora Kallmus, better known as Madame d’Ora, was a talented portraitist who found theatrical spectacle in many of her subjects.
    Edward Rothstein, WSJ, 7 Mar. 2020
  • Enter William Bache, a portraitist who traveled from town to town with a wooden machine, which could render an accurate, two-dimensional depiction of one’s face for only a few cents.
    Smithsonianmag.com, Smithsonian Magazine, 21 Aug. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'portraitist.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: