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PAUL GAUGUIN
1848-1903
PECHEUSES DE GOEMON
Graphite and gouache on gray millboard coated with white primer
10 7/8 by 12 3/4 in. 27.6 by 32.4 cm.
Executed circa 1889-90.
Provenance
Marie Henry, Le Pouldu, France
Galerie Barbazanges, Paris (acquired from the above in 1919)
Private Collection, Japan (by 1932)
Shuzo Fukui, Osaka
Fujikawa Gallery, Tokyo
Private Collection, Japan
Exhibited
Paris, Galerie Barbazanges, Paul Gauguin: Exposition d'oeuvres inconnues, 1919,
no. 22
Daimaru, Yomiuri Shimbunsya, International Art Exhibition, circa 1950,
no. 32
Tokyo, Sojinsha & Co., Modern Art Exhibition, 1951, no. 8
Tokyo, Metropolitan Art Gallery; Museum of Kyoto, The Fourth International Art Exhibition of Japan, 1957
Osaka City Museum of Modern Art; Osaka-Yomiuri Shinbunsya at Osaka City Museum, Modern Art Exhibition, 1964
Gifu, The Museum of Fine Arts; Kumamoto Prefectural Museum of Art, Odilon Redon, rencontres et rEsonances, 1985-86, no. 68
Tokyo, The National Museum of Modern Art; Aichi Prefectural Art Gallery, Paul Gauguin, 1987, no. 51
Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; The Art Institute of Chicago; Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, The Art of Paul Gauguin, 1988-89, no. 101
Yokohama Museum of Art; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art; Kyoto City Museum of Art, Gauguin et ses amis peintres - Le Pouldu en Bretagne, 1992, no. 7
The Bunkamura Museum of Art; Tokyo, The National Museum of Modern Art; Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art; Mie Prefectural Museum of Art; Koriyama City Museum of Art, Gauguin et l'Ecole de Pont Aven, 1993, no. 19
Graz, Landesmuseum Johanneum, Gauguin & Brittany: a New Beginning, 2000
Literature
Marie Henry Archive no. 17 (as dating from 1890 and catalogued oil on board)
Institute of Art Research, Journal of Art Studies, Tokyo, 1932
Maurice Malingue, "Du nouveau sur Gauguin," L'Oeil, Paris, July-August 1959, no. 17, illustrated p. 37 (as dating from 1890 and catalogued as oil on canvas)
Georges Wildenstein, Gauguin, vol. I, Paris, 1964, no. 392, illustrated p. 151
(as dating from 1890)
Seiji Oshima, Japonisme, Tokyo, 1980,
p. 298
AndrE Cariou, Les peintres de Pont Aven, Rennes, 1999, illustrated p. 73
This gouache is one of a number of works Gauguin executed for the decoration of the dining room of the inn at Le Pouldu, Brittany, belonging to Marie Henry (who was the original owner of this work). In addition to celebrated paintings such as the Self-Portrait with Halo (National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), the portrait of Meyer de Haan (Private Collection, New York) and the Bust of Meyer de Haan (National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa), Gauguin contributed a number of smaller works to the decoration of Marie Henry's inn where he stayed in 1889. In his description of the dining room, Henri Moth 3/16re, the husband of Marie Henry, described their position on the wall: "... to the left, all along the wall, were painted cardboard panels, two lithographs on yellow paper... a little canvas..." (The Art of Paul Gauguin (exhibition catalogue), National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1988-89, p. 179).
With its flattened forms, compressed space and decorative treatment of the waves, the present work is heavily indebted to the art of Japan. Since Gauguin's stay in Arles, where he had been able to study the Japanese prints in Vincent van Gogh's collection, the influence of artists such as Katsushika Hokusai and Ando Hiroshige had been particularly evident. Gauguin had treated the same subject in a much larger canvas - The Seaweed Gatherers, 1889 (Museum Folkwang, Essen) - but in the present work he concentrated on the two figures hauling in the kelp, rhythmically silhouetted against the monumental wave. In a preliminary study - Two Breton Women Harvesting - Gauguin sketched in the basic composition, although it was greatly refined in the
final work.
Superimposed on the left-hand figure with her back to the viewer is a network of fine lines, apparently organic in origin. It has been suggested that this may have resulted from a strand of kelp that the artist applied to the surface of his work. In view of the maritime environment in which it was created, this would not be altogether surprising. It is also thoroughly in keeping with its decorative qualities where, as FranAoise Cachin has observed, "we are on the brink of art nouveau" (ibid., p. 179).
This work will be included in the new edition of the catalogue raisonnE of Paul Gauguin being prepared by Daniel Wildenstein under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.