id: 127115 accession number: 1949.439 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1949.439 updated: 2024-03-26 01:58:13.316000 Head of a Tahitian Woman, 1891. Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903). Graphite with stumping and graphite wash on parchment; sheet: 30.5 x 24.4 cm (12 x 9 5/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams Collection 1949.439 title: Head of a Tahitian Woman title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1891 creation date earliest: 1891 creation date latest: 1891 current location: creditline: Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams Collection copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: graphite with stumping and graphite wash on parchment department: Drawings collection: DR - French type: Drawing find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903) - artist 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, Cézanne (q.v.) and Pissarro. He went to Pontoise in 1882, where he painted with Cézanne 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 métier. Gauguin distanced himself from impressionism and in 1888 worked in Pont-Aven with Émile 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. --- measurements: Sheet: 30.5 x 24.4 cm (12 x 9 5/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: description: imitation vellum watermarks: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Gauguin in Tahiti opening date: 1950-04-01T05:00:00 Gauguin in Tahiti. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (organizer) (April 1-May 14, 1950). title: 35th Anniversary Exhibition opening date: 1951-06-20T04:00:00 35th Anniversary Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 20-September 30, 1951). title: Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition opening date: 1958-03-03T05:00:00 Department of Prints and Drawings Opening Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (March 3, 1958-October 11, 1959). title: Nineteenth Century Master Drawings opening date: 1961-03-16T05:00:00 Nineteenth Century Master Drawings. Newark Museum, Newark, NJ (organizer) (March 16-April 30, 1961). title: 19th Century Master Drawings opening date: 1961-03-16T05:00:00 19th Century Master Drawings. Newark Museum, Newark, NJ (organizer) (March 16-April 30, 1961). title: Drawings opening date: 1963-01-11T05:00:00 Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 11-September 10, 1963). title: 19th and 20th Century Drawings opening date: 1965-02-19T05:00:00 19th and 20th Century Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 19-March 24, 1965). title: French Drawings opening date: 1965-11-16T05:00:00 French Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 16, 1965-February 16, 1966). title: Drawings opening date: 1968-06-11T04:00:00 Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 11-October 21, 1968). title: Gauguin opening date: 1969-08-23T04:00:00 Gauguin. National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto, Kyoto, Japan (October 5-November 7, 1969). title: Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Early Nineteenth-Century Genre and French Prints and Drawings opening date: 1979-05-31T04:00:00 Seventeenth-, Eighteenth-, and Early Nineteenth-Century Genre and French Prints and Drawings. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (May 31-August 19, 1979). title: Gauguin to Moore: Primitivism in Modern Sculpture opening date: 1981-11-07T05:00:00 Gauguin to Moore: Primitivism in Modern Sculpture. Art Gallery of Ontario, Ontario M5T 1G4, Canada (organizer) (November 7, 1981-January 3, 1982). title: National Schools of Style opening date: 1983-06-14T04:00:00 National Schools of Style. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 14-September 18, 1983). title: Paul Gauguin opening date: 1987-03-06T05:00:00 Paul Gauguin. The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan (organizer) (March 6-May 17, 1987); Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Nagoya, Japan (June 12-28, 1987). title: The Art of Paul Gauguin opening date: 1988-05-01T04:00:00 The Art of Paul Gauguin. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (organizer) (May 1-July 31, 1988); The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (September 17-December 11, 1988). title: Directions in Drawing II: The Human Figure opening date: 1991-11-05T05:00:00 Directions in Drawing II: The Human Figure. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 5, 1991-January 12, 1992). title: French Drawings from the Collection opening date: 1994-12-13T05:00:00 French Drawings from the Collection. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 13, 1994-March 12, 1995). title: Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2000-08-27T00:00:00 Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (August 27-October 17, 2000); The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY (May 23-August 19, 2001); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (October 14, 2001-January 6, 2002). title: Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2014-03-09T00:00:00 Treasures on Paper from the Collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 9-June 8, 2014). title: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2023-01-20T05:00:00 Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 20-April 30, 2023). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'A Loan Exhibition of Paul Gauguin for the Benefit of the New York Infirmary. Wildenstein, New York (April 3 - May 4, 1946).', 'opening_date': '1946-04-03T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE (Hugo Perls, Berlin, sold to De Hauke & Co., Inc., New York) date: ?-1929 footnotes: citations: (De Hauke & Co., Inc., sold to Mr. and Mrs. Lewis B. Williams, Cleveland, OH) date: 1929 footnotes: *
De Hauke inv. no. 1373.
citations: Mr. [1880–1966] and Mrs. [1879–1980] Lewis B. Williams, Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1929-1949 footnotes: citations: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1949 - footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Morice, Charles. Paul Gauguin. Paris: H. Floury, 1919. page number: Reproduced: p. 149 url: Rewald, John. Gauguin. New York: Hyperion Press, 1938. page number: Reproduced: p. 155 url: A Loan Exhibition of Paul Gauguin For the Benefit of the New York Infirmary. Exh. Cat. New York: Wildenstein, 1946. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: no. 53 url: "Rare Drawings in Gauguin Exhibition." The Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin 39, no. 15 (April 15, 1950): 74. page number: Mentioned: p. 74 url: Francis, Henry S. "A Drawing by Gauguin." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 37, no. 8 (1950): 178-179. page number: Mentioned: pp. 178-179; Reproduced: p. 174 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25141656 Rewald, John. Gauguin Drawings. New York: Yoseloff, 1958. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: no. 93 url: Brooks, Van Wyck, trans. Paul Gauguin's Intimate Journals. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1958. page number: Reproduced: p. 23 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Handbook. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1958. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: cat. no. 606 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1958/page/n113 Rousseau, Theodore, Jr. Gauguin: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Sculpture. Exh. Cat. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, in association with the Lakeside Press, 1959. page number: Mentioned: p. 65, no. 82 url: Nineteenth Century Master Drawings. Exh. Cat. Newark, NJ: Newark Museum, 1961. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: no. 52 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. page number: Reproduced: p. 181 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1966/page/n205 Gauguin. Exh. Cat. Seibu: Grand Magazin Seibu, 1969. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: no. 52 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. page number: Reproduced: p. 181 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1969/page/n205 Pickvance, Ronald. The Drawings of Paul Gauguin. London: Hamlyn, 1970. page number: Mentioned: p. 34; Reproduced: plate 70 url: Martini, Alberto. Paul Gauguin. Milano: Fratelli Fabbri Editori, 1977. page number: Reproduced: p. 3 url: Wadley, Nicholas. Gauguin. London: Phaidon, 1978. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: no. 56 url: The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. page number: Reproduced: p. 223 url: https://archive.org/details/CMAHandbook1978/page/n243 McFee, June King, and Rogena M. Degge. Art, Culture, and Environment: A Catalyst for Teaching. New York: Kendall Hunt, 1980. page number: Reproduced: p. 274 url: Wilkinson, Alan G. Gauguin to Moore: Primitivism in Modern Sculpture. Exh. Cat. Toronto: Art Gallery of Ontario, 1982. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 59, no. 18 url: Prather, Marla, and Charles F. Stuckey, ed. Gauguin: A Retrospective. New York: Hugh Lauter Levin Associates, 1987. page number: Reproduced: p. 174 url: Paul Gauguin. Exh. Cat. Tokyo: National Museum of Modern Art, 1987. page number: Reproduced: p. 92 url: Barskai︠a︡, A. G., and M. A. Bessonova. Paul Gauguin in Soviet Museums. Leningrad: Aurora Art Publishers, 1988. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 67 url: Huyghe, René. Gauguin. New York: Crown, 1988. page number: Reproduced: p. 61 url: Cachin, Françoise. Gauguin. Paris: Flammarion, 1988. page number: Reproduced: p. 146 url: Brettell, Richard, Françoise Cachin, Claire Frèches-Thory, and Charles F. Stuckey. Gauguin. Exh. Cat. Paris: Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, 1989. page number: Mentioned: pp. 212, 224, no. 118; Reproduced: p. 224 url: Cachin, Françoise. Gauguin: "Ce malgré moi de sauvage." Paris: Gallimard, 1989. page number: Mentioned: p. 191; Reproduced: p. 73 url: Clement, Russell T. Paul Gauguin: A Bio-Bibliography. New York: Greenwood Press, 1991. page number: Mentioned: p. 189 url: Thomson, Belinda, ed. Gauguin by Himself. London: Bulfinch Press, 1993. page number: Mentioned: p. 307; Reproduced: p. 168 url: Amishai-Maisels, Ziva, Marina Bessonova, Albert Kostenevic, and Maria Grazia Messina. Paul Gauguin e l'avanguardia Russa. Firenze: Artificio, 1995. page number: Reproduced: p. 68 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, Diane DeGrazia, and Carter E. Foster. Master Drawings from the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland Museum of Art in association with Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 2000. page number: Mentioned: p.5, pp. 142-43, p. 291; Reproduced: p. 143 url: Cable, Patrick Shaw. "From North Africa to the Black Sea: Nineteenth-Century French Orientalist Drawings." Cleveland Studies in the History of Art 7 (2002): 104-25. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 118 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20079721 --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1949.439/1949.439_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1949.439/1949.439_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1949.439/1949.439_full.tif