Jean-Baptiste Armand Guillaumin

Armand Guillaumin was born in Paris in 1841. From humble beginnings as a clerk working for a railway company, he studied painting at his local art school, and later progressed to the Académie Suisse, where he met Cézanne and Pissarro.

He exhibited at the Salon des Réfusés in 1863, and was an original member of the Impressionist group. He showed at six of the eight exhibitions between 1874 and 1886.

Winning a big prize in a lottery in 1891 enabled him to give up his job and devote himself to painting. Guillaumin visited Crozant in the Upper Valley of the Creuse for the first time in 1892. In 1897, he settled there permanently, finally building his own house there in 1910. He also made visits to many other parts of France, especially the South, and also to Holland.

His first one-man exhibition was in 1897 at Durand-Ruel in Paris. Guillaumin was the last of the Impressionists, dying a few months after Claude Monet. His work can be seen in many French museums, including the Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris.