Initially associated with the Impressionists, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) studied with
Pissarro while still working as a Parisian stockbroker and exhibited in four of the eight
Impressionist exhibitions, before evolving during the late 1880s/early 1890s to Post
Impressionism. He began to utilize more vibrant colors and forms in his quest to
create “primitive” artworks based on his contact with Martinique natives, where he
had visited in 1887, Breton peasants, with whom he associated during the late 1880s,
and later, in the 1890s, the virgin landscape of Tahiti.
In Arthur B. Davies’ chronology, Gauguin was included among the Romanticists along
with Van Gogh; he was represented by 13 paintings and numerous lithographs from
Vollard. The works exhibited at the Armory Show reflected Gauguin’s earlier career
as well as his more radical Tahitian works—the most scandalous of which was
Parau
na te Varua ino (Words of the Devil)
, 1892, now in the National Gallery, Washington,
D.C. Armory Show critics decried Gauguin as a, “mediocre technician, trying to do
something he cannot accomplish,” that he painted, “ugly feminine figures,” made,
“abominable the creations,” and was a “decorator tainted with insanity.” They
simultaneously scorned Gauguin and his fellow Post Impressionists for their hand in
paving the way for Cubism and Fauvism.
Despite the criticism, he was still an exalted master and his paintings were listed at
high values. The asking price for
Fleurs sur un fond Jaune
, 1889, in the Armory Show
exhibition was $40,500 (roughly $956,000 today). Gauguin had not achieved much
success during his career, but the vogue for his work began soon after his death,
with posthumous retrospectives in Paris in late 1903 and 1906 furthering his standing
as a significant early modernist. Picasso, who had become interested in Gauguin’s
work through his friend, the Spanish sculptor Paco Durrio, and through seeing
Gauguin’s art at Vollard’s gallery, made a series of female nude paintings and
sculptures in 1906 which directly reference Gauguin’s Tahitian nudes.
Gauguin compiled a document of his Tahitian experiences, which he called
Noa-Noa
(meaning fragrant scent). His text was intended to accompany a series of ten
woodcuts (lot 44) that he had created based on Tahitian themes, however he did
not complete the text in time to be exhibited with the woodcuts in their 1893
inaugural exhibition at the Durand-Ruel gallery in Paris. While traveling back from
his epic art tour in Europe with Davies in 1912, Walt Kuhn translated
Noa-Noa
to
English and offered the translation for sale at the Armory Show as a supplement to
the official exhibition catalogue (see lot 140). Gauguin’s sketches were sometimes
racy (not to mention racist), wherein he frequently described interactions with the
native Tahitian women and the relationship with his 13-year-old Tahitian wife. In
Chicago, much to Kuhn’s dismay, the pamphlet was withdrawn from the exhibition
on moral grounds.
