Axel Bruno Chorin - Self Portrait with a Cigarette, 1916

Axel Bruno Chorin (1870–1931) Finland 

Self Portrait with a Cigarette, 1916

signed and inscribed in Latin and dated 1916
oil on panel
unframed 37.5 × 30 cm (14.8 × 11.8 in)
framed 52 × 44.5 cm (20.5 × 17.5 in)

Inscription
AXELUS CHORINUS
IPSUM ME PROPRIIS
HIC EFFINGEBAM COLORIBUS
AETATIS ANNO MCMXVI

Translation:
"I, Axel Chorin, portrayed myself here with my own colours, in the 46th year of my life, 1916."

Provenance
Private collection, Finland.

Condition Report
The painting is in a good condition after a successful restoration by a professional art conservator. Please contact us for more information. 

Essay:
Painted in 1916, when Axel Bruno Chorin was forty six years old, this remarkably direct self portrait provides an intimate encounter with a little known Finnish artist whose surviving oeuvre appears to consist primarily of landscapes and figure subjects. Born in Lappajärvi, Finland, in 1870, Chorin belonged to the generation of Nordic painters active during the decades around 1900. His artistic life also appears to have included connections with Paris and Dresden, placing him within the broader international environment in which many Scandinavian artists of his generation developed their careers. He died in Viipuri in 1931.

The present painting is particularly compelling because Chorin turns his attention entirely towards himself. He looks directly out from the panel with an intense and remarkably self assured gaze. A cigarette rests casually between his lips, while his prominent moustache and dark clothing give him an immediately recognisable appearance. There is little attempt at idealisation. Instead, Chorin seems determined to record both his physical appearance and something of his personality.

The gaze is undoubtedly the most striking element. Chorin does not merely look towards the viewer; he appears to scrutinise us with the same concentration with which he must have studied his own reflection while painting. This direct exchange between artist and spectator gives the portrait an unusual psychological immediacy.

The cigarette is equally important. In a conventional commissioned portrait such a detail might have been omitted, but here it reinforces the private nature of the image. Together with the magnificent moustache and slightly informal presentation, it creates the impression of encountering Chorin not as a carefully constructed public figure but as the artist in his own environment.

The relatively small format heightens this intimacy. The head occupies much of the panel and emerges from a restrained, dark background. Light is concentrated on the forehead, cheeks and nose, while the clothing gradually disappears into shadow. This controlled contrast directs attention entirely towards the face and particularly towards the eyes.

Although Chorin appears to have been primarily associated with landscape painting, self portraiture was evidently not an isolated subject within his production. Another self portrait dated 1919 is recorded, painted when the artist was forty nine years old. The existence of this later work suggests that Chorin returned deliberately to his own image at different stages of his life. The present painting, executed three years earlier, therefore forms part of a particularly interesting autobiographical strand within his oeuvre.

What makes this work unusual is the Latin inscription. Rather than simply signing his name and adding the date, Chorin identifies himself through the Latinised form Axelius Chorinus and records both the authorship and his age. In translation, the inscription reads:

"I, Axel Chorin, portrayed myself here with my own colours, in the 46th year of my life, 1916."

On one level Chorin presents himself with scholarly seriousness, using Latin and carefully recording his age for posterity. On another, he portrays himself as an unmistakably modern individual, cigarette between his lips and gaze fixed confidently upon the viewer.

Self portraits occupy a unique position within an artist's production because painter, sitter and patron effectively become the same person. They frequently reveal aspects of personality that disappear from commissioned portraits. Chorin's painting is a particularly successful example. Nothing appears superfluous: the eyes, moustache, cigarette and inscription together construct a concise but memorable statement of identity.

More than a century after it was painted, the portrait retains an extraordinary immediacy. We know comparatively little about Axel Bruno Chorin today, which paradoxically makes the encounter even more compelling. Through this small panel he presents himself directly to us, leaving behind not only his likeness but his own written confirmation of who he was, how old he was and that the image was painted by his own hand.

Self Portrait with a Cigarette is therefore more than an accomplished Nordic portrait. It is a rare autobiographical document and an unusually personal surviving work by a Finnish artist whose oeuvre remains deserving of further study.