Self Portrait is an autobiography of Gail Chadell Nanao, an American artist. It follows her from her youth in Brooklyn through her adventures through Mexico and the West coast in a tiny Dutch micro-car in the 1960s, and her life as an art student in San Francisco. Her life takes a dramatic turn when she meets and falls in love with a charismatic Japanese artist and they move first to New York and then to Tokyo. The autobiography describes their lives together in Japan and California, and her life as an artist and mother in a bi-racial family.