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Seaweed Gatherers, Yport
About the Artwork
Claude-Emile Schuffenecker worked closely with Paul Gauguin to form Synthetism, a style of art that broke from Impressionism in favor of flat planes of bold color and invented subjects. This drawing, which exists in two versions, is one of Schuffenecker’s most important works from the period. The other interpretation (owned by the Art Institute of Chicago) was featured in an influential 1889 exhibition organized by Gauguin and Schuffenecker at the Café Volpini on the grounds of the Universal Exposition. Both artists saw imagery of seaweed gatherers—a task undertaken by working-class people in rural French coastal towns—as exemplifying the simplicity they sought in their art.
Inscriptions
signed, lower right, in graphite: Schuffenecker [underlined]; on verso, lower right, in graphite: P
Provenance
?-?: Paul Schuffenecker, Paris ?-?: M. Bruyère, Namur, France ?-?: M. Jean Willems, Brussels by 1989-1990: (Shepherd Gallery, New York, NY) 1990-?: (Paul Prouté, Paris) after 1990-2009: Samuel Josefowitz, Lausanne, Switzerland, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 2000-: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4, 2009-January 18, 2010); Van Gogh Museum, 1070 AJ Amsterdam, Netherlands (February 18-June 6, 2010).
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Claude-Emile Schuffenecker (French, 1851–1934)
- Date
- c. 1889
- Medium
- black chalk
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 29.2 x 22.7 cm (11 1/2 x 8 15/16 in.); Framed: 57.2 x 49.8 x 4.5 cm (22 1/2 x 19 5/8 x 1 3/4 in.)
- Type
- Drawing
- Classification
- Drawing
- Department
- Drawings
- Credit line
- Gift from Samuel and Paul Josefowitz in tribute to Jane Glaubinger and Heather Lemonedes
- Accession no.
- 2009.380
More by Émile Schuffenecker in museum collections
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Open-access museum record · AT-00011061
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