Self-Portrait – dedicated and given to Cuno Amiet (1929)

We are all familiar with the 20^th century image of the screen icon with cigarette hanging from their lips. It became the stock visual vernacular for the insouciant, hard-boiled anti-hero of the new modern age. This self-portrait is quite possibly the first artwork ever to capture the pose. An alternative title perhaps: The Birth of Cool.

Born in Zurich and a pupil of Ferdinand Hodler (1853-1918), Conrad Meili was a Swiss painter and writer and one the most stylish figures of 1930s Paris where he lived with his wife, the Japanese woman of letters, Kikou Yamata (1897-1975). In 1939, the couple left for a short trip to Japan, but found themselves stranded in the Land of the Rising Sun with the outbreak of World War II. Already popular in Japan, Meili became a culturally important figure in the country before returning to Paris in 1949.  He became a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1956.

This drawing is dedicated to the Swiss painter and his great friend, Cuno Amiet (1868-1961) – one of the great modernists of the 20^th century and perhaps the greatest Swiss artist of all time.