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Gauguin
Degas had a special relationship with Gauguin, who was, in many ways,
his protégé. As a young artist making his way in the Impressionist circle in the 1870s, Gauguin had looked to Degas for guidance, and to the end of
his life Degas remained a primary influence on his work. Degas seems to have willingly assumed the role of mentor and offered his support at a time when Gauguin's work attracted mostly derision and few buyers. Degas persuaded Galerie Durand-Ruel to host an exhibition of Gauguin's work in 1893 and rallied to Gauguin's cause in 1895, when he bought nine works from the otherwise disastrous sale Gauguin had organized to finance a trip to Tahiti. Degas's patronage of Gauguin's art spanned nearly two decades, from 1880 until at least 1898. He owned nearly thirty works by Gauguin: ten paintings, an assortment of drawings and monotypes, a suite of woodcuts, and a walking stick. Although he bought a handful of works through Ambroise Vollard and other dealers, he acquired the majority directly from Gauguin--a few by gift or exchange, the rest purchased at the fund-raising auctions Gauguin held in 1891 and 1895 and at his studio exhibition in 1894. Degas, a bourgeois regulated by domestic and social routines, hardly understood Gauguin's need, as he described it, "for people with flowers on their head and rings through their noses." Yet without Degas's invaluable support and patronage in the 1890s, Gauguin might have been unable to live out his life in the South Seas.
Delightful Land (Nave nave fenua), from "Noa Noa,"1893-94
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