Began in 1976 as a sister label to Epic Records. By 1979, Epic was looking to consolidate some of its low-end producing labels and, for a short time, Portrait and Epic had both names on the same label.

In 1982, the Portrait label was relaunched again tapping into the new wave scene.

By the end of 1986, the only act making money on this label was Cyndi Lauper, but this was not enough to sustain keeping the label afloat and it was shelved.

In 1988, the label re-emerged as a contemporary jazz outfit, but again ceased in 1990. Epic tried to revive the label twice more, but it was finally ended in 2002. Most of the Portrait releases have been remastered and re-released on Epic.