The Artist's Piano: Parisian Self-Portraits by Hugh Ramsay (1877-1906)

In 1918 the Fine Art Society held an exhibition of the Australian artist Hugh Ramsay’s work in Melbourne, in which a number of self-portraits—including the Portrait of the Artist Standing before Easel (see Fig. 1)—were displayed amongst the selected works. In the catalogue essay, Edward Vidler wrote in relation to the range of work on view: ‘it is scarcely thinkable, with the evidence of his actual work before us, that he would have been content, like many of even the recognised masters, to repeat himself continuously either in the subjects or treatment of his canvases.’