Charles Angrand was a visible presence in the Parisian avant-garde in the late 1880s and early 1890s. Associated with a circle of artists known as the Neo-Impressionists, Angrand emulated the shadowy crayon drawings of Georges Seurat, Neo-Impressionism's standard-bearer. Here Angrand presents himself, not at all as an artist, but as a bourgeois dandy, impeccably dressed and smoking a small cigar. His dashing figure emerges from a penumbra of black ground. Following Seurat's lead, Angrand deftly manipulates the stark white of the textured paper to illuminate the darkness. Fellow Neo-Impressionist Paul Signac praised Angrand's crayon drawings: "… his drawings are masterpieces. It would be impossible to imagine a better use of white and black …These are the most beautiful drawings, poems of light, of fine composition and execution."

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