Self-Portrait Dedicated to Carriere

Self-Portrait Dedicated to Carrière (c.1888-89) at the National Gallery of Art was painted at the height of Gauguin's Synthetist development and dedicated to the Symbolist painter Eugène Carrière — an act of artistic solidarity that linked the avant-garde circles of Pont-Aven and the Paris Symbolist scene. Carrière was known for his misty, atmospheric portraits rendered in near-monochromatic brown tones, an approach that could not be more different from the bold, flat color zones Gauguin was developing. The dedication was thus both an act of respect for an older colleague and an implicit acknowledgment of difference: Gauguin's self-portrait shows him in his own developing style, not in Carrière's manner, and the contrast between dedicatee and dedicator's approach was visible to anyone who knew both painters' work. The National Gallery of Art's strong Post-Impressionist collection includes this self-portrait alongside other major Gauguins from the Breton and Tahitian periods, providing the range needed to understand his development across his different phases. The incorrect Wikidata year of 1778 is clearly erroneous; the work dates to approximately 1888-89.

The self-portrait shows Gauguin's face rendered with simplified modelling and firm contours that distinguish his Synthetist approach from the blended, misty technique of the Carrière to whom it is dedicated. The colour palette is relatively sombre — dark coat, neutral background — placing the emphasis entirely on the character and expression of the face.