Portrait of Paul Sérusier

About the Artwork

Throughout his career, Émile Bernard made numerous portraits of his friends and colleagues, including this image of the painter Paul Sérusier. The two artists traveled to Florence in 1893 to study Renaissance painting and exchanged portraits of one another while they were there. Bernard portrayed his friend formally, presenting him frontally alongside a notation that the drawing was made during his Italian travels.

Inscriptions

inscribed, lower left, in diluted ink: Portrait de Paul Séruzier / Emile Bernard / Florence 1893

Provenance

1893-?: Paul Sérusier [1864-1927], Morlaix ? - by 1950: Marcel Guérin [1873-1948], Paris ? - ?: possibly Marguerite Sérusier [1879–1950], Châteauneuf-du-Faou ? - probably 1983: Henriette Boutaric [?-1983], Paris 1998: (sale, Christie's, London, Dec. 9, 1998, no. 210, sold to William Kelly Simpson, Katonah, NY) 1998 - 2018: William Kelly Simpson [1928-2017], Katonah, NY, bequeathed to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH 2018 -: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Exhibition history

Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-June 11, 2023).

Quick Overview

Artist: Émile Bernard (French, 1868–1941)
Date: 1893
Medium: gouache and watercolor on thin beige wove paper
Dimensions: Sheet: 41.9 x 27.7 cm (16 1/2 x 10 7/8 in.); Secondary Support: 52.2 x 36.7 cm (20 9/16 x 14 7/16 in.)
Type: Drawing
Classification: Drawing
Department: Drawings
Credit line: Bequest of William Kelly Simpson
Accession no.: 2018.76

More by Émile Bernard in museum collections

Caricature of Paul Gauguin
Émile Bernard
1889 · Drawing
Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of ArtAT-00011441

Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.