Vincent van Gogh
Julien Tanguy's colour shop supplied Van Gogh with paint on credit and showed his canvases when no dealer would. Van Gogh painted three portraits of Tanguy in 1887 and 1888.
Père Tanguy's shop, 14 rue Clauzel
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The tiny paint shop of Julien 'Père' Tanguy, who supplied the Impressionists on credit, hung their canvases in his window when no dealer would, and sat three times for Van Gogh's most affectionate portrait.
- 14 rue Clauzel, 75009 Paris
- Julien Tanguy's colour shop, 1870s–1894
The place, briefly
Julien Tanguy sold colours. He had been a Communard, had done time for it, and ran a small shop on the rue Clauzel where painters with no money could get paint against the promise of payment later, or against a canvas. That arrangement is not a footnote to Impressionist history; for several years it was the difference between working and not working.
He also hung the pictures. Tanguy's window and back room functioned as an informal gallery at a point when the trade would not touch Cézanne, Van Gogh or Gauguin, and young painters came to the shop specifically to see work they could not see anywhere else. Émile Bernard and others described it as a small school.
Van Gogh painted him three times in 1887 and 1888, seated, hands folded, in a hat, against a wall of Japanese prints — one of the warmest portraits he ever made and, not coincidentally, of the man who was extending him credit. The best-known version is at the Musée Rodin in Paris.
Tanguy died in 1894 and the stock was sold off; Vollard, who would go on to make Cézanne's reputation, bought from it. The shop is gone and the street is quiet.
Key facts
- Julien 'Père' Tanguy, colour merchant and former Communard
- Sold paint on credit and showed unsellable canvases in his window
- Three, painted 1887–88; the best-known is at the Musée Rodin
- Cézanne, Gauguin, Pissarro
- 1894; his stock was dispersed
- Shop gone; building stands, unmarked
Timeline
Van Gogh buys from Tanguy and shows work in the shop.
He begins the series of portraits of Tanguy against Japanese prints.
Tanguy dies and his stock is sold.
On the map
Questions before you go
Who was Père Tanguy?
A Paris colour merchant who supplied paint on credit to painters with no money, and displayed their canvases when no gallery would. Van Gogh, Cézanne and Gauguin all depended on him.
Where is Van Gogh's portrait of Tanguy?
He painted three. The best-known version hangs at the Musée Rodin in Paris.
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