Oil on artist's board mounted on cradled panel, 1886/87; 41 x 32.5 cm
Joseph Winterbotham Collection, 1954.326

Vincent van Gogh painted 24 self-portraits during a two-year stay in Paris (1886-88). In this Self-Portrait,the Dutch artist employed Seurat's dot technique. But what for Seurat was a method based on science became in van Gogh's hands an intense emotional language. Here the red and green dots are disturbing and totally in keeping with the nervous tension evident in van Gogh's gaze. Such self-portraits reveal the profound insecurity and frustration of a gifted man, whose odyssey in search of acceptance and peace of mind is powerfully expressed in his work.