Paul Gauguin

Lucien Moline, Paris
Gustave Fayet, Béziers (acquired from the above in September-October 1903)

Paris, Grand Palais, Salon d'Automne, 4ème exposition: Œuvres de Gauguin, 1906, no. 28

Executed on cream wove paper, laid down on brown paper. The watercolour monotype is in red, grey, brown and dark green, reworked with watercolour in orange, blue and green. There are two fine scratches in the surface of the sheet, one running diagonally 12cm from the edge above the head to the arm, and the other running horizontally 1.5cm from the left edge at the level of the waist. There is a small loss at the centre of the right edge and another in the lower-right corner, which probably date from time of the artist. This work is in good original condition.
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The present work is a remarkable example of the monotype technique developed by Paul Gauguin, exceptional for both its history of ownership and graceful depiction of a Tahitian scene.

One of the few European artists of his generation to visit the South Seas, Gauguin fell in love with the mystique of the tropics and incorporated the region's lush colours and organic forms into his paintings, drawings, and sculptures. Most precious among Gauguin's production from this era are his depictions of Tahitian women who possess a beguiling and exotic beauty that was unseen in avant-garde art at the turn of the century. Gauguin was indulgent in his portrayal of the overwhelming seductive appeal of his young models, and his attraction to these women resulted in depictions that are raw with sensuality, ultimately enriching his art.

In his crucial study of Gauguin's monotypes published in 1973, Richard S. Field, described the technique: 'The monotype is a special hybrid of print and drawing. ... [It] owes its appeal to its double nature: it preserves the spontaneity and freedom of drawing while adding, in the act of printing, an element of chance - an uncertainty born of the pressurized interaction of pigment and paper' (Richard S. Field, Paul Gauguin: Monotypes (exhibition catalogue), Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1973, p. 13).

To create a monotype, 'Gauguin prepared a "matrix" drawing using as a medium watercolor, gouache or pastel - pigments soluble in water. He would then thoroughly dampen another sheet of paper, place it on top of the matrix drawing, and by applying pressure to the back of the dampened sheet with a spoon, release the pigment and thus transfer the design, in reverse, to the second, dampened sheet. ... and he strengthened certain weak areas of the transfers or even added additional passages to the resulting impressions. For this reason, no two are exactly alike' (Richard Brettell in The Art of Paul Gauguin (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Art, Washington and The Art Institute of Chicago, 1988, p. 352.

In many of his monotypes, Gauguin adapts a composition or a single figure from an existing painting as the basis for the new work, an element noticed by the contemporary critic Julien Leclerq: 'By a process of printing with water, he imparts to the watercolor the gravity, sumptuosity, and depth which are for him, no matter what subject he chooses, the necessary conditions of art. In these studies, as in his woodcuts, he is not concerned with inventing new compositions; he has simply transposed into another medium motifs from his Tahitian works' (quoted in R.S. Field, op. cit, p. 17). The irregular shape of the sheet is rare but not unique in Gauguin's works on paper, presumably done by the artist to accentuate the composition.

The figure in the present example first appeared in two works executed in 1891 during Gauguin's first trip to the South Seas. Both are entitled I Raro te Oviri (Under the Pandanus), today in the Dallas Museum of Art (fig. 1) and the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. The same motif was used again as the basis for the woodcut Noa Noa, one of the series of the same name executed during the winter and spring of 1893-94, when Gauguin was back in France.

As is to be expected, the figure is reversed in respect to the 1891 paintings. Carrying fruit at the end of a stick slung over her shoulder, and accompanied by a dog, she has been interpreted as a symbol of a primordial activity dominating the everyday lives of the inhabitants of the Tahitian islands: the search for food. However, in an important departure from the 1891 works, the figure is rendered ever more primitive since she has discarded her pareu, the skirt of flowered cotton wrapped around the waist, and stands naked within the lush vegetation, a Polynesian Eve. She recalls a passage from Noa Noa (Tahitian for "fragrance"), the seminal auto-biographical account of his Polynesian experiences, enabling us to decipher some of the symbolism of the monotype:

And the Eve of this paradise became more and more docile, more loving. I was permeated with her fragrance - noa noa. She came into my life at the perfect hour. Earlier, I might, perhaps, not have understood her, and later it would have been too late. Today I understand how much I love her, and through her I enter into mysteries which hitherto remained inaccessible to me. [...] It is in my emotions and impressions that I shall later find her words inscribed. By the daily telling of her life she leads me, more surely than it could have been done by any other way, to a full understanding of her race (Noa Noa, pp. 74-75).

Not seen in public since 1906, when it was lent to the Gauguin retrospective exhibition at the 1906 Salon d'Automne, the present work was acquired by Gustave Fayet (1865-1925) in September 1903, shortly after the artist's death in Marquesas islands. The present work is closely related in terms of style and subject to another monotype based on the same motif, used by Gauguin as the frontispiece to the manuscript for Noa Noa (fig. 2). Richard Field has dated this monotype to circa 1896-99, during the artist's second Polynesian trip, and a similar date is likely for the present work, which was acquired by Fayet at the same time as another monotype, dated circa 1899, Cruche et fruits sur une table (R.S. Field, op. cit, no. 132). Fayet was probably the most devoted of Gauguin's early patrons and collectors, acquiring a large number of his paintings and works on paper, as well as important works by Redon, Manet, Monet, Degas and Pissarro.


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FIG. 1, Paul Gauguin, I Raro te Oviri (Under the Pandanus), 1891, Dallas Museum of Art

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FIG. 2, Paul Gauguin, I Raro te Oviri, frontispiece to Noa Noa, circa 1896-99, Musée du Louvre, Paris, Département des Arts graphiques (fonds Orsay)