A to Z Challenge

Impressionist – Armand Guillaumin

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—Self Portrait, Armand Guillaumin, 1878, oil on canvas,
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Armand Guillaumin lived from February 1841 to June 1927. Guillaumin was part of the group of Paris painters known as the Impressionists.

Growing up, he worked in his uncle’s lingerie shop. He took art classes in the evenings. In 1861, he attended the Académie Suisse (an art school). There he became lifelong friends with Cézanne and Pissaro. Even though Guillaumin was never known as well as the other Impressionists, he did influence their works.

Guillaumin also became acquainted with Van Gogh, which led to Theo Van Gogh selling some of his works. Later, Guillaumin was fortunate in that he won 100,000 francs in the French lottery. He quit the government job he had by then to concentrate on his painting.

Guillaumin died in Orly near Paris.

The Bass Museum of Art in Miami Beach has a small collection of Guillaumin’s works.

—La Seine à Charenton, Armand Guillaumin, 1878, oil on canvas,
Musee d’Orsay, Paris

Impressionism is the art movement begun in the 1870s/1880s when a small group of painter friends decided to display their works at independent exhibitions. The word impressionism was coined when art critic Louis Leroy wrote a satirical article in a Paris paper where he was writing about Monet’s painting Impression.

I had never heard of Guillaumin until recently, but he is listed as one of the main Impressionists along with Bazille, Caillebotte, Cassatt, Cézanne  Degas, Manet, Monet, Morisot, Pissaro, Renoir, and Sisley. He was the last of the Impressionists to die, as he lived to be 86 years old.

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