Biography

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Armand GUILLAUMIN , Impresssionnist painter with intense colors, is famous for his landscapes of Paris, Creuse and Esterel areas.
Born in Paris in a working-class family recently emigrated from Moulins in Bourbonnais, where he spent as a child his vacations, he started to work at the age of 15 in his uncle's store in 1857, while attending evening drawing lessons.

In 1860 he was engaged as employee on the Paris-Orleans railway line, while he continued drawing during his free time, before attending the Academy Charles Suisse where he met Cézanne and Pissarro, with whom remained friends for life.

After spending two years without working, since he could not live from his painting, he worked from 1868 on, as a night working employee in the Highways Department, in order to be able to paint during day time. At the beginning of the 1870s, he worked with Pissarro in Pontoise, a village of farmers hardly affected by industrialization where Pissarro had settled, sharing with him his love for landscapes.

They visited Paul Gachet in Auvers, a doctor practising medicine in Paris in a working district, who was socialist, free-thinker, and a regular visitor of the Caf�EGuerbois. Just as Pissarro . Cézanne settled in Pontoise in 1872 to better follow the instructions of his mentor, Pissarro, then in Auvers in 1873 where Dr. Gachet placed a housing at his disposal. Cézanne made a portrait of Guillaumin entitled "Guillaumin at the Hanged man" at that time.

Throughout his work with Pissarro, Guillaumin was to develop his art of landscape painting, with perspectives opened by winding paths, while also sometimes introducing in his setting industry themes reminiscent of a certain romanticism.

Guillaumin formed part of the first group exhibition of the Impressionists in 1874 and was to exhibit his works to most of the ensuing shows, as well as to the Salon des Refusés.

Towards the end of the 1880s he became a friend of Van Gogh, and some of his paintings were sold by Théo Van Gogh.

In the 1890s, his painting was to become more subjective, and he started using very expressive colors, soon anticipating the Fauves.

In 1886 he married his cousin Marie-Joséphine Charreton, a school teacher who supported him financially.

In 1891 he gained at the National Lottery, which consequently enabled him to concentrate on his painting and to move regularly between Agay, Crozant and Saint-Palais-sur-Mer, as well as travelling to Holland in 1903-04.

Guillaumin whose life was long since he died in 1927 at the age of 86 was the last survivor of the Impressionists group, of whom he was one of the most faithful and fair member.