Following on from the sculptured heads by Franz Messerschmidt, for which he used his own face as a template, I thought I'd run a little series on self-portraits.
Having been to see the big Gauguin exhibition at Tate Modern last month (which incidentally convinced me that Van Gogh was the superior painter) I'll begin with Gauguin's. I'm sure that we're all familiar with his more famous Polynesian works so I think a look at his self-portraits would be a good place to start.
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris 7 June 1848 and is considered one of the leading painters of the Post-Impressionist period. He died of syphilis at the age of 54 on 8 May 1903 at Atuona, Hiva ‘Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia. The last portrait shown here was the last one he painted, in 1903.
