The Lure of the Exotic: Gauguin in New York Collections

Ives, Colta, and Susan Alyson Stein, with Charlotte Hale and Marjorie Shelley (2002)

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Description

The legendary, pioneering French artist who famously left his family and a career in finance to paint and live like a native in the South Seas, Paul Gauguin in fact began sailing to far-off lands during childhood. As a boy he lived for a time with relatives in Peru, and in his teens, in the merchant marine and the military, he visited South America, India, the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the North Sea. He believed firmly in his difference, often referring to himself as a "savage," and once he discovered his passion for art he had to create forms that were original and unique. "What does it matter that I set myself apart from other people? For most I shall be an enigma, but for a few I shall be a poet ...," he wrote.

Thus Gauguin traveled widely, seeking inspiration for a radical new artistic vision. He tried Brittany, where he worked together with a group of followers. There Gauguin discovered a wellspring of his art: an intense desire to capture the soul of a naive culture. In France he also went to Provence, painting briefly in the company of Van Gogh. He moved farther and farther afield, to Panama and Martinique, settling at last in Tahiti. Finally he found his resting place in the distant Marquesas Islands. In these exotic ports if call Gauguin liberated his art from the here and now, creating a subjective reality of imagination and dreams in vividly colored, highly abstract paintings depicting native life an din rough ceramic sculptures and carved reliefs. "He's in another world," remarked the Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro.

This volume accompanies a major exhibition of Gauguin's work in New York collections held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Surprisingly, the first major show devoted to Gauguin in New York since the Metropolitan Museum presented a retrospective of his work in 1959, it anticipates the centennial of the artist's death in 1903 and signals the ninetieth anniversary of his debut in New York collections.

Four authors from the Metropolitan Museum illuminate aspects of the subject in their texts. Colta Ives, curator in the Department of Drawings and Prints, explores the development of Gauguin's art in the context of his travels. Susan Alyson Stein, associate curator, Department of European Paintings, discusses the history of the collecting and exhibiting of the artist's work in New York. Conservator Charlotte Hale treats the technical examination of his paintings and the light it sheds on issues of authenticity. And conservator Marjorie Shelley writes about the materials and techniques Gauguin employed in his works on paper. In addition, many revealing excerpts from Gauguin's letters and other writings—he was a prose stylist of distinction—are included.

All works in the exhibition, as well as rich comparative material, are reproduced. Notes, a bibliography, a checklist of works in the exhibition, and an index are supplied.

Table of contents

Sponsor's Statement

Director's Foreword
Philippe de Montebello

Lenders to the Exhibition

Acknowledgments
Colta Ives, Susan Alyson Stein

Note to the Reader

Gauguin's Ports of Call
Colta Ives

Introduction

Gauguin in Paris and the Île de France

Gauguin in Brittany: Pont-Aven, 1886, 1888–90, 1894

Gauguin in Martinique, 1897

Gauguin in Arles, 1888

Gauguin in Brittany: Le Pouldu, 1889

Gauguin in Tahiti: 1891–93, 1895–1901

Gauguin in the Marquesas: Hiva Oa, 1901–3

From the Beginning: Collecting and Exhibiting Gauguin in New York
Susan Alyson Stein

Gauguin's Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Recent Revelations through Technical Examination
Charlotte Hale

Gauguin's Works on Paper: Observation on Materials and Techniques
Marjorie Shelley

Table: Analysis of Certain Materials Found in Gauguin's Works on Paper Examined for This Study
Silvia A. Centeno

Works in the Exhibition
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Photograph Credits

About the authors

Colta Ives is Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Susan Alyson Stein is Associate Curator, Department of European Paintings, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Press reviews

Choice Reviews Online

"The volume's design is spare and elegant, echoing modern museum practices: many pages pair a single illustration with a quotation, as if to invite reverie. ... This volume contributes to studies of patronage, museology, and reception of Gauguin's work."

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Exhibition

The Lure of the Exotic: Gauguin in New York Collections

This major exhibition marks the first occasion in more than forty years that Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903) has been the subject of a major monographic show in New York City, and the first time that the Metropolitan Museum has displayed its entire collection of the artist's work. Approximately 120 works drawn from New York public and private collections—including more than sixty from the Met's own holdings—are on view in the exhibition comprising paintings, sculptures, drawings, and prints. The exhibition features works from every important stage of the artist's career and from each of his outposts in Brittany, Provence, Martinique, Tahiti, and the Marquesas Islands.

The Metropolitan Museum acquired its first Gauguin in 1921, and in the intervening years his work reached an ever-widening public audience through the concerted efforts of prominent New Yorkers and local institutions. Thanks to pioneering acquisitions and the generosity of donors, the Metropolitan and other museums in the state—from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City to the Albright-Knox Gallery in Buffalo—have afforded generations of viewers a vivid sense of Gauguin's genius. Shown together, these purchases, gifts, and bequests to public museums, combined with the holdings of discerning private collectors, many of which have hitherto never been on public view, provide a rich overview of Gauguin's fascinating career and a telling account of the reception of his works on this side of the Atlantic.

Plan Ahead

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