Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History


    • Two Tahitian Women, 1899
    Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
    Oil on canvas

    37 x 28 1/2 in. (94 x 72.4 cm)
    Signed and dated (lower left): 99 / PGauguin
    Gift of William Church Osborn, 1949 (49.58.1)

    Before Gauguin brought his work in Tahiti to a close, he shifted from his symbolist pictorial agenda in order to focus on the beauty and serene virtues of the native women. In this painting, he depended on sculpturally modeled forms, gesture, and facial expression to vivify the sentiments he had used to describe the "Tahitian Eve": "very subtle, very knowing in her naïveté" and at the same time "still capable of walking around naked without shame." These two figures first appear in the artist's monumental frieze Faa Iheihe (Tahitian Pastoral) of 1898 (Tate, London) and again in the even larger Rupe, Rupe of 1899 (Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow), which he composed for the upcoming Exposition Universelle of 1900.

    This work of art also appears on Connections: Escape

    Related


    This work has been published in the Museum's Bulletin or Journal. These articles may or may not represent the most current scholarship.
  • Oaklander, Christine I. "Jonathan Sturges, W. H. Osborn, and William Church Osborn: A Chapter in American Art Patronage." Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 43 (2008).
  • Giroud, Vincent. "Picasso and Gertrude Stein." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 64, no. 3 (Winter, 2007).
  • Salinger, Margaretta M. "Windows Open to Nature." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, v. 27, no. 1 (Summer, 1968).
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    • On view: Gallery 826
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    Two Tahitian Women, 1899
    Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
    Oil on canvas

    37 x 28 1/2 in. (94 x 72.4 cm)
    Signed and dated (lower left): 99 / PGauguin
    Gift of William Church Osborn, 1949 (49.58.1)


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