Woman in Profile (c. 1889): Art, History and Details

Woman in Profile (c. 1889) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Henri Jean Guillaume Martin (French, 1860–1943).

The work and its context

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

Henri Martin was an important French painter from Toulouse known for his contributions to the Neo-Impressionist movement. He painted this striking depiction of a woman seated outdoors before tall trees at a moment when he was just beginning to develop his mature style. The figure and background are painted with short, thickly applied strokes of pure color, filling the composition with energy and life. The trees are rendered with small hatching strokes and form a background of nearly abstract, decorative shapes.

Object facts

• Title: Woman in Profile
• Date: c. 1889
• Creator attribution: Henri Jean Guillaume Martin (French, 1860–1943)
• Culture: France, 19th - 20th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on canvas
• Dimensions: Unframed: 23.2 x 45.3 cm (9 1/8 x 17 13/16 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2022.433

A detail from the museum

A highly celebrated artist during his lifetime, Henri Martin received commissions to produce large paintings to decorate the interiors of important buildings in Paris, including the Palais Royal, the Hôtel de Ville (city hall), the Sorbonne, the Palais de Justice, and Élysees Palace.

Collection credit

Bequest of Muriel Butkin

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.