Armand Guillaumin Biography | Oil Painting Reproductions

Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin, he worked at his uncle's lingerie shop in Paris while going to night school for drawing lessons He worked for a French government railroads and studied at the Paris Académie Suisse in 1861. At the Academy, he met Paul Cézanne and Camille Pissarro and they all remained lifelong friends.

While he never achieved the stature of those two, his influence on them and their work were significant. Cézanne did his first etching based on Armand Guillaumin paintings of barges on the River Seine. Together in 1873, they painted on the banks of the Seine. Armand Guillaumin painted views of the banks of the Seine and more particularly the views of Ivry-sur-Seine, Clamart, and Charenton, in the southern suburbs of Paris. The artist's strong preference for water be it the sea or the rivers were to become one of his favorite subjects, and at that time, Guillaumin's pallet was already rather bright.

Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin exhibited at the Salon des Refusés in 1863. He participated in six of the eight Impressionist exhibitions: 1874, 1877, 1880 - 1882 and 1886. In 1886 he became a friend of Vincent van Gogh whose brother, Theo an art dealer, sold some of Guillaumin's work.

Edgar Degas and Claude Monet were not particularly awed by his works, which were marked by an enthusiasm for bright colors that towards the end of his life, brought him close to the Fauvists.

In 1887 he married Marie-Josephine Garton, a teacher at the Lycée Fénelon, and a native of the Creuse, where he liked to paint. Edgar Degas and Paul Gauguin were his best men at the wedding. Gauguin was to leave four years later for Tahiti, never to be seen again.

His prospects improved when his artwork was taken up by the art dealer Auguste Portier, and he was guaranteed financial stability when in 1891 at the age of 50, he won a huge sum of 100,000 Francs (equal to US$3,000,000 today) in the National Lottery, enabling him to finally give up his gave up his railroad job and paint full-time.

Noted for their intense colors, Guillaumin's paintings are represented in major museums around the world. He was one of the first and most dedicated members of the Impressionist group. His landscapes of the Creuse, particularly those around Crozant, rank among its most prized works. The vigor of his brushwork and colors of his landscapes bring him close to Van Gogh and influenced the young Henri Matisse.

Art Movement History: Impressionism.
Artists Influencing Armand Guillaumin: Paul Cézanne, Camille Pissarro, Henri Matisse.
Artist's Biography compiled by Albert L. Mansour at The World's Artist, with text adapted from Wikipedia.

Look at our THEN & NOW photo section. See, the present day location that inspired the famous artist Armand Guillaumin We travel the world to find the exact location where the artist set up his easel to paint. We photograph it as it appears today. Now, you can compare side by side photos of the original oil painting and the present-day location.