Self Portrait No 1. Autoportrait No 1. by Georges Rouault, 1871-1958

Georges Rouault, 1871-1958
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Self Portrait No 1. Autoportrait No 1.

Original lithograph worked with chalk, brush and scraper in black ink. 1925. Signed in the stone. From the issued edition of 385 impressions for the series 'Souvenirs Intimes - Intimate Memories'. (There were also 60 signed proof impressions). Drawn and printed at the studio of Duchatel, Paris 1925. Issued by Frapier, 1925.
Ref: Rouault l'Oeuvre Gravé no 311

Very fine strongly tonal impression. On pale cream wove paper. Generally excellent condition; the very slightest trace of an old mount. Full margins. Sheet: 13 x 9 7/8ins. Image: 9 1/8 x 6 3/4ins (230x172mm)

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The inspiration of all Rouault's art lay in his condemnation of the moral degeneration of society and his overriding belief in the redeeming power of Christian faith. He was born under the wartime conditions of the bombardment of Paris during the Franco-Prussian war in 1871. Much of his work was to be devoted to the condemnation of the evils of war, especially during the 1914-18 Great War, but it was also the extreme social injustice which he saw in French society which inspired some of his most powerful imagery.

It is the moral and spiritual intensity of Rouault's message, together with a style which combines the force of expressionism with an extraordinary quality of serenity captured with forms treated in a manner derived from the timelessness of religious stained glass, which gives Rouault's art the most profound emotional impact of any early 20th century European painter.

Rouault painted and drew a number of Self Portraits throughout his career. He saw them as a way of personifying the visual communication of his beliefs. The Self Portrait above was drawn as a part of a set of lithograph portraits of the great thinkers and writers who had most deeply influenced his life issued under the general title 'Souvenirs Intimes - Intimate Memories' Alongside portraits of the symbolist painter Gustave Moreau, the religious philosopher Léon Bloy, the poet Baudelaire, and the moral essayist André Suarès, Rouault instilled his own portrait, drawn with the richest of brushed lithographic tones and contrasting stark open highlights, with all the spiritual force of his whole artistic message.