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Lot Essay
It is often said that Wim Schuhmacher executed his best works before 1940. The highlight of his later oeuvre is without a doubt this self-portrait drawing.
During his life Schuhmacher made numerous self-portraits on canvas and on paper. The first self-portrait dates from around 1910, when he was 14 years old and the last was a self-portrait when he was 83 years old. Only during the period from 1930 till 1940, did he not use himself as a model. In the portraits we can not only follow his stylistic and artistic change from a luministic toward a realistic style, but they are above all a personal document of a sensitive artist who had the urge to present himself directly and vulnerable towards his audience. In this sense, they can be compared with the intense self-portraits of his contemporary Dick Ket. In his self-portraits Schuhmacher presents himself in an extremely thoughtful and serious pose, his eyes very concentrated. Almost all self-portraits from after 1940 are drawn with black ink on paper. For these drawings, he used a heavy Japanese kind of paper which he had bought in Paris around 1935. With a very fine pencil, he applied the ink directly on the paper. Because the ink immediately gets absorbed by the paper, the artist could not afford to make any mistake.
As Jan van Geest states, these self-portraits gave Schuhmacher the opportunity to concentrate on the aspects of lines and forms that interested Schuhmacher mostly. According to the artist himself it was not necessary that the self-portraits were physiognomically correct. Here he took the liberty to exaggerate.
The present circular shaped self-portrait dating from 1969 was executed with the help of a magnifying-glass. Here he presented himself in extreme close up, which gave him the oppertunity to concentrate relentlessly on the wrinkles of his skin. The face is almost regarded as a landscape where shadows and light mark the slopes. In the right pupil, a reflection of a vague face is visible, which recalls Maurits Escher's famous woodcut of a single very detailed eye with the skull in the pupil.
The present lot is one of the last self-portraits which is not in a public Dutch collection.
During his life Schuhmacher made numerous self-portraits on canvas and on paper. The first self-portrait dates from around 1910, when he was 14 years old and the last was a self-portrait when he was 83 years old. Only during the period from 1930 till 1940, did he not use himself as a model. In the portraits we can not only follow his stylistic and artistic change from a luministic toward a realistic style, but they are above all a personal document of a sensitive artist who had the urge to present himself directly and vulnerable towards his audience. In this sense, they can be compared with the intense self-portraits of his contemporary Dick Ket. In his self-portraits Schuhmacher presents himself in an extremely thoughtful and serious pose, his eyes very concentrated. Almost all self-portraits from after 1940 are drawn with black ink on paper. For these drawings, he used a heavy Japanese kind of paper which he had bought in Paris around 1935. With a very fine pencil, he applied the ink directly on the paper. Because the ink immediately gets absorbed by the paper, the artist could not afford to make any mistake.
As Jan van Geest states, these self-portraits gave Schuhmacher the opportunity to concentrate on the aspects of lines and forms that interested Schuhmacher mostly. According to the artist himself it was not necessary that the self-portraits were physiognomically correct. Here he took the liberty to exaggerate.
The present circular shaped self-portrait dating from 1969 was executed with the help of a magnifying-glass. Here he presented himself in extreme close up, which gave him the oppertunity to concentrate relentlessly on the wrinkles of his skin. The face is almost regarded as a landscape where shadows and light mark the slopes. In the right pupil, a reflection of a vague face is visible, which recalls Maurits Escher's famous woodcut of a single very detailed eye with the skull in the pupil.
The present lot is one of the last self-portraits which is not in a public Dutch collection.