Autorretrato

Van Gogh painted this in Paris in the summer of 1887, one of more than 20 portraits he made of himself in the two years he spent there, largely because a mirror was free and models were not. The canvas reached New York in 1912, bought by John Quinn, a lawyer who collected new European art, and in February 1913 he lent it to the International Exhibition of Modern Art in a Manhattan armoury. About 20 Van Goghs hung in that show. It was the first real look America had at him, 23 years after his death, and most of the newspaper attention went to Marcel Duchamp's nude coming down a staircase. Quinn died in 1924 and his collection was dispersed. The picture reached Hartford in 1954, given by the architect Philip Goodwin in memory of his mother.