Detail View: The AMICA Library: Head of a Tahitian Woman

AMICA ID: 
CMA_.1949.439
AMICA Library Year: 
1998
Object Type: 
Drawings and Watercolors
Creator Name: 
Gauguin, Paul
Creator Nationality: 
European; French
Creator Role: 
artist
Creator Dates/Places: 
1848 - 1903
Biography: 
Gauguin spent the first seven years of his life with his mother and great uncle in Peru. In 1855 his mother took him back to France where he attended boarding school. He joined the merchant marine when he was seventeen and began traveling around South America. When Gauguin's mother died in 1868, Gustave Arosa, an art collector and photographer, became his legal guardian. Arosa's collection included works by Corot (q.v.), Courbet (q.v.), Delacroix (q.v.), and the Barbizon painters, and it was he who would encourage Gauguin to start painting. In 1872 Arosa found a job for Gauguin at a brokerage firm, giving him financial security. The following year he married a Danish woman, Mette Gad. Gauguin had already started painting and sculpting in his spare time and first exhibited at the Salon in 1876 with a landscape.1 He was asked by Pissarro (q.v.) and Degas (q.v.) to participate in the fourth impressionist exhibition in 1879, where from then on he would exhibit regularly. Durand-Ruel began purchasing his paintings, and in turn Gauguin started to collect the works of his colleagues, such as Manet (q.v.) and Renoir (q.v.) and, in particular, C‚zanne (q.v.) and Pissarro. He went to Pontoise in 1882, where he painted with C‚zanne and Pissarro, who along with Degas continued to influence him at this period. In 1883 Gauguin decided to become a full-time artist. In 1884 he moved with his wife and children to Rouen and then to Copenhagen, but he failed to earn a comfortable living. He returned to Paris in 1886 and met ceramicist Ernest Chaplet (1835-1909), who introduced him to his m‚tier. Gauguin distanced himself from impressionism and in 1888 worked in Pont-Aven with mile Bernard (1868-1941), who had been experimenting with creating compositions using flat areas of color and dark outlines (cloissonism). Gauguin also studied Japanese prints and Indonesian art. The impact of these influences is evident in Gauguin's Vision after the Sermon: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), so far removed from his earlier impressionist style. Succumbing to van Gogh's (q.v.) many requests, Gauguin agreed to travel to Arles and paint with the artist; their characters, however, proved incompatible. Theo van Gogh, who worked for Boussod Valadon & Cie, would in the meantime sell Gauguin's work. For the next two years, Gauguin traveled often around Brittany. In search of a more pure and unspoiled culture, he auctioned off his paintings in 1891 in order to finance a journey to Tahiti. Upon his arrival, he was disappointed to find many expatriates and developed areas, yet he was still able to capture in his works an uncultivated spirit. He not only made paintings but also created bold woodcuts and sculptures and was an avid writer. Gauguin returned to France in 1893, where he was given a solo exhibition by Durand-Ruel that was not particularly successful. He decided to leave Europe again in 1895, moving to Tahiti and later to Hivaoa, a more remote island in the Marquesas. Because he abandoned naturalistic colors and used formal distortions in order to achieve expressive compositions, Gauguin's work became an inspiration for many subsequent artists.1. Possibly Wildenstein 1964, no. 12.
Gender: 
M
Creator Birth Place: 
Paris, 7 June 1848
Creator Death Place: 
Atuona, Marquesas Islands, 8 May 1903
Creator Name-CRT: 
Paul Gauguin
Title: 
Head of a Tahitian Woman
Title Type: 
Primary
View: 
Full View
Creation Date: 
1891
Creation Start Date: 
1891
Creation End Date: 
1891
Materials and Techniques: 
graphite with stumping and graphite wash
Classification Term: 
Drawing
Dimensions: 
Sheet: 30.5cm x 24.4cm
AMICA Contributor: 
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Owner Location: 
Cleveland, Ohio, USA
ID Number: 
1949.439
Credit Line: 
Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams Collection
Rights: 
Provenance: 
[César M. de Hauke (1900-1965) (according to cma files)]; Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams, Cleveland (by whom purchased in 1929).
Context: 
This portrait head relates to a figure in Gauguin's painting Les Parau Parau (Conversation), executedin the same year as the drawing. However, the close observation and delicate use of graphite with graphite washes make it clear that Gauguin drew it as an independent work rather than as a study.It was probably one of the earliest works he completed during his first trip to Tahiti. Several years later, he seems to have included it in a show he organized in his Paris studio in 1894.
Related Image Identifier Link: 
CMA_.1949.439.tif