Armand Guillaumin (French 1841-1927)

A French Impressionist painter, Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin studied art in Paris at the Academie Suisse in 1861.  There he met and became lifelong friends with his fellow students, Paul Cezanne and Camille Pissarro.  

Guillaumin first exhibited his paintings at the 1863 Salon des Refuses, and during the following decades his art was included in most major Impressionist exhibitions. Recognition, however, was slow, and Guillaumin was forced to work for the Highways Department to support his family and thus he could only pursue his artistic career in his spare time.  Good Fortune smiled upon him in 1891 when he won a major lottery and was able to devote himself entirely to painting and printmaking.

Guillaumins first experiments with etching date from 1872.  The following year Pissarro invited Cezanne and Guillaumin to stay with him at Pontoise and introduced them to Dr. Gachet.  Gachet was an enthusiastic amateur etcher and prevailed on all the artists who came to see him to try their hand at etching; he even prepared the copper plates, supervised the biting and pulled the proofs on his own press.  Both Cezanne and Guillaumin etched a number of plates there.  In fact, Cezannes first etching was based upon a landscape painting of Guillaumins and his second etching was a portrait of his close friend entitled, Portrait of Guillaumin with the Hanged Man.

In the 1880s, Armand Guillaumin became a close companion with Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).  Scholars have often seen an affinity in the compositions of these two artists, particularly in their vigorous brushwork and vibrant coloration.  Perhaps because of his association with this great Dutch master, Guillaumin visited Holland in 1904. En Hollande (In Holland) dates from this year, but (apart from a handful of artists proofs) was not published in an edition until 1922.  At this time Theodore Duret published his third edition of the influential volume, Histoire des Peintres Impressionists and printed Guillaumins En Hollande as well as original etchings by Pierre Auguste Renoir and Berthe Morisot.