id: 148297 accession number: 1975.263 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1975.263 updated: 2023-06-02 11:05:35.477000 The Large Tree, 1891. Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903). Oil on fabric; framed: 92.4 x 112.7 x 6.4 cm (36 3/8 x 44 3/8 x 2 1/2 in.); unframed: 74 x 92.8 cm (29 1/8 x 36 9/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Barbara Ginn Griesinger 1975.263 title: The Large Tree title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1891 creation date earliest: 1891 creation date latest: 1891 current location: creditline: Gift of Barbara Ginn Griesinger copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: oil on fabric department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting 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: Framed: 92.4 x 112.7 x 6.4 cm (36 3/8 x 44 3/8 x 2 1/2 in.); Unframed: 74 x 92.8 cm (29 1/8 x 36 9/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Signed lower right: P Gauguin 91 Inscribed lower left: Te raau rahi translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Masters of Impressionism opening date: 1998-11-17T00:00:00 Masters of Impressionism. Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes, Mexico (November 17, 1998-February 28, 1999). title: Degas to Picasso: The Painter, the Sculptor and the Camera opening date: 1999-10-01T00:00:00 Degas to Picasso: The Painter, the Sculptor and the Camera . San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA (organizer) (October 1, 1999-January 4, 2000); The Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX (February 1-May 7, 2000); Museo Guggenheim Bilbao, 48001 Bilbao, Spain (June 12-September 10, 2000). title: Verso l'Arte Moderna, da Puvis de Chavannes a Matisse e Picasso opening date: 2002-02-10T00:00:00 Verso l'Arte Moderna, da Puvis de Chavannes a Matisse e Picasso. Palazzo Grassi spa, 30124 Venice, Italy (organizer) (February 10-June 16, 2002). title: Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art opening date: 2006-05-27T00:00:00 Monet to Dalí: Modern Masters from the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 21, 2007-January 13, 2008). title: Gauguin and Polynesia: South Pacific Encounters opening date: 2011-09-24T00:00:00 Gauguin and Polynesia: South Pacific Encounters. Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA (February 14-April 29, 2012). title: Van Gogh Repetitions lend-back opening date: 2013-10-12T00:00:00 Van Gogh Repetitions lend-back. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, Italy (October 12, 2013-June 1, 2014). title: Paul Gauguin: Painting Like God opening date: 2015-02-07T00:00:00 Paul Gauguin: Painting Like God. Fondation Beyeler, CH-4125 Riehen/Basel, Switzerland (organizer) (February 7-June 28, 2015). title: The World of Gauguin opening date: 2024-06-28T04:00:00 The World of Gauguin. National Gallery of Australia, Canberra ACT 2601, Australia (June 28-October 7, 2024); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX (November 3, 2024-February 16, 2025). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * Paintings from El Greco and Rembrandt to Cézanne and Matisse. Reinhardt Galleries, New York, NY (1927). * French Art since 1800. Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (1929). * A Loan Exhibition of Paul Gauguin. Wildenstein Gallery, New York, NY (1946). --- PROVENANCE (Reinhardt Gallery, New York, NY, 1927) date: 1927-1929 footnotes: citations: (Leicester Galleries, London, United Kingdom, 1929, sold to Mr. Frank H. Ginn) date: 1929 footnotes: citations: Mr. Frank H. Ginn [1868-1938], Gates Mills, OH, by descent to this daughter, Barbara Ginn date: 1929- footnotes: citations: Mr. and Mrs. Frank Griesinger (Barabara Ginn), Cleveland, OH, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: 1976 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 1976- footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Gauguin positions four women in a friezelike sequence seeking shelter under the dark green leaves of a large tree while the leaves of the second tree add a decorative pattern to the pink thatched roof. With his brush, he captures contrasting elements of the tropical climate, sending the viewer into the cool shade to escape the hot sun. digital description: wall description: Disgusted with the materialism of European society, Gauguin abandoned his family and career as a stockbroker and departed for Tahiti in 1891. This canvas is among the first paintings he completed on the island. Its rich colors and stylized figures were intended to be both symbolic and mysterious, evoking private thoughts and emotions. “I obtain symphonies,” he wrote, “harmonies that represent nothing real in the absolute sense of the word.” --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Bulliet, C. J. Apples & Madonnas; Emotional Expression in Modern Art. Chicago, IL: P. Covici, Inc, 1927. page number: Reproduced: p. 98 url: "Notes on the Color Plates." ARTnews 25 (May 14, 1927): 50-64. page number: Mentioned: p. 50; reproduced: 61 url: Pemberton, Murdock. Picture Book. New York, NY: A.A. Knopf, 1930. page number: Reproduced: pl. 14 url: Malingue, Maurice. Lettres de Gauguin à Sa Femme et à Ses Amis, Recueillies et Préfacées par Maurice Malingue. Paris: B. Grasset, 1946. page number: Mentioned: p. 236 url: Scherman, Harry, ed. Book-of-the-Month Club News (May 1948): cover. page number: Reproduced: Cover url: Catalogue of Colour Reproductions of Painting from 1860 to 1949. Paris: Unesco, 1949. page number: Reproduced: p. 77, no. 102 url: Coe, Nancy. The History of the Collecting of European Paintings and Drawings in the City of Cleveland. Thesis M.A. Oberlin College, 1955. page number: Reproduced: vol.2, p. 58 url: Rewald, John. Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin. New York, NY: Museum of Modern Art, 1956. page number: Reproduced: p, 505 url: Wildenstein, Georges. Gauguin. Paris: Les Beaux-Arts, Éditions d'Études et de Documents, 1964. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: vol. 1, p. 172-173 url: Mandel, Gabriele Mandel. L'opera completa di Gauguin. Milano, Iitaly: Rizzoli, 1972. page number: Reproduced: p. 255 url: Field, Richard S. Paul Gauguin: The Paintings of the First Voyage to Tahiti. New York, NY: Garland Pub, 1977. page number: Reproduced: p. 71, no. 16; Mentioned: p. 58 url: Henning, Edward B. "Woman in the Waves." ARTnews 83 (March 1984): 104-106. page number: Reproduced: p. 106 url: Griffin, Jonathan. Noa Noa: Gauguin's Tahiti. Oxford, UK: Phaidon, 1985. page number: Reproduced: p. 19, fig. 8 url: Hoog, Michel. Paul Gauguin, Life and Work. New York, NY: Rizzoli, 1987. page number: Reproduced: p. 192, pl. 133 url: Prather, Marla, and Charles F. Stuckey. Gauguin: A Retrospective. New York, NY: H.L. Levin Associates, 1987. page number: Reproduced: pl. 60 url: Barskai︠a︡, A. G., and M. A. Bessonova. Paul Gauguin in Soviet Museums. Leningrad, USSR: Aurora Art Publishers, 1988. page number: Reproduced: p. 99 url: The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LXXVIII, no. page number: Reproduced: p. 87 url: Schneeberger, Pierre-Francis. Gauguin, Tahiti. Paris, FR: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1991. page number: Reproduced: p. 16-17 url: Robinson, William H. "Puvis De Chavannes's "Summer" and the Symbolist Avant-Garde." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 78, no. 1 (1991): 2-27. page number: Mentioned and Reproduced: p. 21-22 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161310 Hinson, Tom E. "Notable Acquisitions." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 78, no. 3 (1991): 63-147. page number: Reproduced and Mentioned: p. 87 url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25161319 Metken, Günter. Gauguin in Tahiti: The First Journey : Paintings 1891-1893. New York, NY: Norton, 1992. page number: Reproduced: no. 5 url: Smith, Nigel J. H. Tropical Forests and Their Crops. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Pr, 1992. page number: Reproduced: p. 299, fig. 6.7 url: Coven, Jeffrey, and Dore Ashton. Baudelaire's Voyages: The Poet and His Painters. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Co, 1993. page number: Reproduced: p. 134 url: Chong, Alan. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art: A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. page number: Reproduced: p. 82 url: Zingg, Jean-Pierre. Les éventails de Paul Gauguin. Paris, FR: Editions Avant & Après, 1996. page number: Reproduced: o. 57; Mentioned: p. 56 url: Museo del Palacio de Bellas Artes (Mexico). Maestros del Impresionismo. México, D.F.: Istituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, 1998. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 90-93 url: Kosinski, Dorothy M. The Artist and the Camera: Degas to Picasso. Dallas, TX: Dallas Museum of Art, 1999. page number: Reproduced: p. 134, no. 122 url: d' Argencourt, Louise, and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: v. 1, p. 280-282, no. 101 url: Salvesen, Britt. Gauguin. Chicago, IL: Art Institute of Chicago, 2001. page number: Reproduced: p. 63, fig. 24 url: Lemoine, Serge. From Puvis De Chavannes to Matisse and Picasso: Toward Modern Art. Milano, IT: Bompiani, 2002. page number: Reproduced: p. 332, fig. 37 url: Greub, Suzanne. Gauguin, Polynesia. Munich, Germany: Hirmer, 2011. page number: Reproduced: p. 195, fig. 169 url: Childs, Elizabeth C. Vanishing Paradise: Art and Exoticism in Colonial Tahiti. Berkeley, CA : University of California Press,2013. page number: Reproduced: pl. 7 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1975.263/1975.263_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1975.263/1975.263_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1975.263/1975.263_full.tif