Background

Armand Guillaumin was born on February 16, 1841, in Paris, Ile-de-France, France to a working-class family recently emigrated from Moulins in Bourbonnais, where he spent much of his childhood. He was the grandson of Jean Joseph Guillaumin who was a notary by trade.

Education

Armand Guillaumin began working at the age of fifteen in his uncle's store, while attending evening drawing lessons. He returned to Paris at the age of sixteen and in 1860 he gained employment working on the Paris-Orleans railway, continuing to paint in his spare time.

Guillaumin entered the Académie Suisse in 1861, where he met Paul Cézanne and Camille Pissarro, with whom he was friends for the rest of his life.

Career

Armand Guillaumin showed several of his paintings at the 1863 Salon des Refusés. In the 1870s, unable to make a living as a painter, Guillaumin moved to Pontoise, a tiny village where he was able to find night work. This allowed him to paint during the day, using the natural light for which the Impressionists are so well known. Cézanne eventually joined the other artists in the village, and he and Guillaumin briefly took up residence together. It was during this period that they participated in the first ever Impressionist exhibition in 1874.

In the 1880s, he made the acquaintance of Vincent Van Gogh, whose brother, Theo, later helped him to sell a few pieces. Perhaps due to the influence of Van Gogh’s bold style, he began to use brighter and more expressive hues to define his compositions, almost in anticipation of the Fauve movement.

In 1891, he won one hundred thousand French francs in the lottery, a windfall that enabled him to devote himself exclusively to painting. From this point on, he made numerous visits to Saint-Palais-sur-Mer, Agay, Brittany, and the Auvergne.

During the late period of his life, Guillaumin traveled throughout France and Europe.

Achievements

• Armand Guillaumin was one of the original members of the group of artists who started Impressionism, though he did not achieve the fame and repute of his contemporaries such as Renoir, Monet, Morisot, Pissarro, and Degas.
  
  He participated in six of the eight Impressionist exhibitions, and influenced the work of Pissarro, Signac, Cézanne, and van Gogh. One of his paintings of the river Seine was the basis for Cézanne's first lithograph.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • The Seine

    1867

  • Hollow in the Snow

    1869

  • Landscape

    1870

  • Sunset at Ivry (Soleil couchant à Ivry)

    1873

  • Quai de Bercy, effets de neige

    1874

  • La Place Valhubert

    1875

  • Neige

    1876

  • Autoportrait au chevalet

    1878

  • Le Pont des Arts

    1878

  • The Seine river at Charenton

    1878

  • Vue de port

    1880

  • Effts de neige à Palaiseau

    1883

  • Epinay-sur-Orge

    1884

  • Après la pluie

    1885

  • Vase de chrysanthemes

    1885

  • Pommiers en fleurs

    1889

  • Creuse under the snow

    1890

  • Plateau Bromont at Pontgibaud (Puy de Dôme)

    1890

  • Valley in Pontgibaud

    1890

  • Les rochers rouges

    1894

  • Madness Ravine, Crozant

    1894

  • À la campagne

    1895

  • Crozant, les Monts Sedelle, matin

    1895

  • Moulin Bouchardon, Crozant

    1895

  • The Haystacks

    1895

  • Landscape at Pontgibaud

    1895

  • Mountain Landscape - Pontgibaud, village in Peschadoire

    1895

  • Saint-Julien-des-Chazes

    1895

  • Landscape near Saint-Julien-des-Chazes

    1895

  • Cottages in a landscape

    1896

  • Les Ruines a Crozant

    1897

  • Landscape of Creuse

    1897

  • Sunset in Creuse

    1898

  • Neige à Crozant

    1898

  • Saint-Sauves under the snow

    1899

  • Les rapides a Genetin

    1900

  • Paysage à Crozant

    1900

  • Winter in Saint-Sauves-d'Auvergne

    1900

  • Saint-Sauves-d'Auvergne

    1900

  • Agay, les Roches Rouges

    1901

  • Moret

    1902

  • Moulins en Hollandee

    1904

  • Echo Rock

    1905

  • Paysage du Midi

    1905

  • Le Trayas

    1907

  • Rochers sur la Côte à Agay

    1907

  • Le Pornic

    1909

  • Agay Bay

    1910

  • Dans le Midi

    1910

  • Le réservoir à Poitiers

    1910

  • La Pointe du Lou Gaou

    1911

  • Pont-Charraud: gelée blanche

    1911

  • Rafales de vent, Le Brusc

    1911

  • Crozant, solitude

    1915

  • Paysage à Crozant

    1917

  • Landscape of Creuse at spring

  • Landscape of Puy de Dôme

  • Caves Prunal near Pontgibaud (Auvergne)

Connections

In 1886 Armand Guillaumin married his cousin Marie-Joséphine Charreton, a school teacher and settled in the town of La Creuse in 1887.

Spouse:

Marie-Joséphine Guillaumin

Grandfather:

Jean Joseph Guillaumin

Friend:

Vincent van Gogh

Friend:

Camille Pissarro

Friend:

Paul Cézanne

References

• Armand Guillaumin Guillaumin was one of the original group of painters who exhibited in 1874 and who were collectively dubbed Impressionists by the critic Louis Leroy. They exhibited together more or less regularly until 1886 and then began to break up. The artistic development of Guillaumin parallels that of Monet.
  1972
• Armand Guillaumin Armand Guillaumin Art Book contains 120+ Impressionist Reproductions of landscapes, daily life, still lifes and portraits with title, date and interesting facts page below.
• The Art of Armand Guillaumin
• Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927)
  2014