Paul Gauguin: Metamorphoses
This exhibition (
rare and
extraordinary prints and transfer drawings, and their relationship to his
better-known paintings and his sculptures in wood and ceramic. Comprising approximately
160 works, including some 130 works on paper and a critical selection of some
30 related paintings and sculptures, it is the first exhibition to take an
in-depth look at this overall body of work. .
Created in
several discreet bursts of activity from 1889 until his death in 1903, these
remarkable works on paper reflect Gauguin’s experiments with a range of
mediums, from radically “primitive” woodcuts that extend from the sculptural
gouging of his carved wood reliefs, to jewel-like watercolor monotypes and
large, mysterious transfer drawings. Gauguin’s creative process often
involved repeating and recombining key motifs from one image to another,
allowing them to evolve and metamorphose over time and across mediums.
Printmaking, which by definition involves transferring and multiplying images,
provided him with many new and fertile possibilities for transposing his
imagery.
Gauguin embraced the subtly textured surfaces, nuanced
colors, and accidental markings that resulted from the unusual processes that
he devised, for they projected a darkly mysterious and dreamlike vision of life
in the South Pacific, where he spent most of the final 12 years of his life.
Though Gauguin is best known as a pioneer of modernist painting, this
exhibition showcases a lesser-known but arguably even more innovative aspect of
his practice. (Text: MoMA New York)