Armand Guillaumin (; February 16, 1841 – June 26, 1927) was a French
impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passag ...
painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
and
lithographer
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone ( lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German ...
.
Biography
Early years
Born Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin in
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. ...
, he worked at his uncle's
lingerie
Lingerie (, , ) is a category of primarily women's clothing including undergarments (mainly brassieres), sleepwear, and lightweight robes. The choice of the word is often motivated by an intention to imply that the garments are alluring, fash ...
shop while attending evening drawing lessons. He also worked for a French government railway before studying at the
Académie Suisse in 1861. There, he met
Paul Cézanne
Paul Cézanne ( , , ; ; 19 January 1839 – 22 October 1906) was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically d ...
and
Camille Pissarro, with whom he maintained lifelong friendships. While he never achieved the stature of these two, his influence on their work was significant. With these two friends, Guillaumin exhibited at the
Salon des Refusés in 1863.The three artists frequently painted in each other's company in the 1870s; for a time, Guillaumin and Cézanne had studios next door to each other on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris. In 1873, Cézanne made the only etchings of his career, one of them depicting Guillaumin (see Gallery below).
Guillaumin was a member of the
Société anonyme des artistes peintres, sculpteurs et graveurs' (later dubbed, ''Impressionistes'') from the start and he participated in six of the eight Impressionist exhibitions: 1874, 1877, 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1886.
In the eyes of contemporary critics, he became known for his assured brushstroke and use of bold colours. In 1886, an astute critic,
Félix Fénéon, called him a "furious colourist"; By the 1890s, his palette had grown even bolder, less faithful to nature. He was a Fauve a decade before
Fauvism
Fauvism /ˈfoʊvɪzm̩/ is the style of ''les Fauves'' (French language, French for "the wild beasts"), a group of early 20th-century modern artists whose works emphasized painterly qualities and strong colour over the Representation (arts), repr ...
.
Full-time painter
In 1886, he became a friend of
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who posthumously became one of the most famous and influential figures in Western art history. In a decade, he created about 2,100 artworks, inc ...
, whose brother,
Theo, exhibited and sold some of his works. Vincent held Guillaumin's work in high regard, commenting on it in dozens of letters written from 1888 t
1890 In the mid 1880s, Guillaumin's studio was a meeting place for young artists such as
Paul Gauguin
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (, ; ; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct fr ...
,
Paul Signac
Paul Victor Jules Signac ( , ; 11 November 1863 – 15 August 1935) was a French Neo-Impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the Pointillist style.
Biography
Paul Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863. ...
and
Georges Seurat. Guillaumin was finally able to quit his government job and concentrate on painting full-time in 1891, when he won 100,000 francs in the state lottery.
["Armand Guillaumin", Oxford Art Online]
Exhibitions and Collections
Armand Guillaumin was given large solo exhibitions at many of the top Parisian galleries, including
Galeries Durand-Ruel in 1895, Galerie
Ambroise Vollard
Ambroise Vollard (3 July 1866 – 21 July 1939) was a French art dealer who is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century. He is credited with providing exposure and emoti ...
in 1897,
Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in 1901 and 1906, and Galerie
Paul Rosenberg in 1908. Noted for their intense colours, Guillaumin's paintings are represented in major museums around the world. These include the
Musée d’Orsay (48 works) and Petit Palais (91 works) in Paris, the
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in E ...
in London, major museums in Germany, Russia, the Netherlands and Spain, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, the Art Institute of Chicago, and many others in the U.S.A,, Canada, Israel and Japan. Private collectors, many of whom owned dozens of works, bought up his production through the 1920s. Noteworthy among these are Count Armand Doria, Dr. Paul Gachet, Théodore Duret,
Gustave Geffroy,
Louis Vauxcelles,
Tadamasa Hayashi,
Sergei Shchukin,
Chester Dale and
Paul Mellon
Paul Mellon (June 11, 1907 – February 1, 1999) was an American philanthropist and an owner/ breeder of thoroughbred racehorses. He is one of only five people ever designated an "Exemplar of Racing" by the National Museum of Racing and Hal ...
.
Legacy
Guillaumin is best remembered for his
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...
s of Paris, the
Creuse
Creuse (; oc, Cruesa or ) is a department in central France named after the river Creuse. After Lozère, it is the second least populated department in France. It is bordered by Indre and Cher to the north, Allier and Puy-de-Dôme to the ea ...
département, and the area around
Les Adrets-de-l'Estérel near the
Mediterranean coast
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...
in the
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur
Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (; or , ; commonly shortened to PACA; en, Provence-Alps-French Riviera, italic=yes; also branded as Région Sud) is one of the eighteen administrative regions of France, the far southeastern on the mainland. Its prefe ...
region of France.
Guillaumin was called the leader of the
École de Crozant
The Crozant School (French: ''École de Crozant'') is named after Crozant, a Commune of France at the northern limit of the department of Creuse. It consists of a host of landscape painters who worked from 1830 to 1950 on the banks of the Grande ...
, a diverse group of painters who came to depict the landscape in the region of the Creuse around the village of
Crozant. One of these depictions, titled ''Landscape in Crozant'', is housed in the Art Institute of Chicago. His bust is in the square near the village church in Crozant.
Death
Armand Guillaumin died in 1927 in
Orly,
Val-de-Marne just south of Paris.
Gallery
File:Guillaumin Armand The Seine.jpg, ''The Seine,'' 1867
File:Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin 002.jpg, ''Landscape'', 1870
File:Armand Guillaumin - View of the Seine, Paris - Google Art Project.jpg, ''View of the Seine, Paris'', 1871, Oil on canvas, 126.4 × 181.3 cm., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH), is an art museum located in the Houston Museum District of Houston, Texas. With the recent completion of an eight-year campus redevelopment project, including the opening of the Nancy and Rich Kinder Bui ...
File:Guillaumin SoleilCouchantAIvry.jpg, ''Sunset at Ivry (Soleil couchant à Ivry),'' 1873, 81 cm x 65 cm. Oil on canvas. Musée d'Orsay
The Musée d'Orsay ( , , ) ( en, Orsay Museum) is a museum in Paris, France, on the Left Bank of the Seine. It is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French a ...
File:Guillaumin LaPlaceValhubert.jpg, ''La Place Valhubert,'' 1875
File:Armand Guillaumin - River Scene - Google Art Project.jpg, ''River Scene'', c. 1890
File:Les Pommiers à Damiette - Jean Baptiste Armand Guillaumin - ABDAG002355.jpg, Les Pommiers à Damiette, 1893, Aberdeen Art Gallery
File:Armand Guillaumin Les Meules.jpg, ''The Haystacks'', c. 1890-1895
File:Agay by Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin, Bass Museum of Art.jpg, ''Agay by Jean-Baptiste'' Armand Guillaumin, circa 1901
File:MuMA - Guillaumin - Paysage de neige à Crozant.JPG, ''Snowy landscape in Crozant''
File:'Landscape with Ruins' by Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin, 1897.JPG, ''Landscape with Ruins'', 1897
File:Paul Cézanne - Portrait de G - original-etching.jpg, Paul Cézanne, ''Guillaumin Thinking,'' 1873
References
External links
*
A biography of Armand Guillaumin.www.armandguillaumin.net a comprehensive study of the artist, his colleagues, exhibitions and collections
Armand Guillaumin Bio- Findlay Galleries
www.armandguillaumin.org260 works by Armand Guillaumin
www.comiteguillaumin.comAuthenticate a painting from Armand Guillaumin
''Impressionism: a centenary exhibition'' an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Guillaumin (p. 108-109)
''Signac, 1863-1935'' a fully digitized exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, which contains material on Guillaumin (see index)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Guillaumin, Armand
1841 births
1927 deaths
Painters from Paris
19th-century French painters
French male painters
20th-century French painters
20th-century French male artists
French Impressionist painters
20th-century French printmakers
19th-century French male artists