Self-Portrait (1872): Art, History and Details

Self-Portrait (1872) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Armand Guillaumin (French, 1841–1927).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This self-portrait is one of several that Armand Guillaumin created as a young artist during the early 1870s. Around this time, he worked closely with Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne, experimenting alongside them with vivid layers of color. Here, Guillaumin juxtaposed dark, dull tones with bright blue and orange to create unexpected optical blends. He meets the viewer's gaze directly, suggesting his intense focus at a period when such experimentation was just beginning to coalesce into the Impressionist movement.

Object facts

• Title: Self-Portrait
• Date: 1872
• Creator attribution: Armand Guillaumin (French, 1841–1927)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: pastel on cream laid paper mounted on cardboard
• Dimensions: Image and Sheet: 37.8 x 31.9 cm (14 7/8 x 12 9/16 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2020.129

A detail from the museum

Armand Guillaumin came from a working-class background and was employed as a laborer for Paris's Department of Bridges and Roads in order to support his artistic ambitions.

Collection credit

Nancy F. and Joseph P. Keithley Collection Gift

Further reading listed by the museum

• Trabault, Marc-Edo. Armand Guillaumin en famille et sur le motif. Exh. cat. Anvers: Antwerpen Peré, 1971.
• Gray, Christopher. Armand Guillaumin. Chester, CT: Pequot, 1991.
• Armand Guillaumin (1841–1927): En famille et sur le motif. Exh. cat. Paris: Galerie Thierry Mercier, 2003.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.