Gauguin Tahiti

Now in paperback, Gauguin Tahiti offers an in-depth study of the fabled Polynesian years that have so defined our image of the painter. Alongside essays on every aspect of Gauguin's art, from the legendary canvases to his sculptures, ceramics and innovative graphic works, are discussions of the Polynesian society, culture and religion that helped shape them; an in-depth biographical narrative, with the many epiphanies, frustrations and discoveries that make his time in the South Seas one of the most mythologically potent episodes in Western art; and a chronicle of his changing fortunes in the century since his death. At the center of it all is Gauguin's 1897 masterpiece, "Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?," the crowning glory of his mature career, presented with unprecedented depth and authority. Over 100 years later, Gauguin remains one of the most enigmatic and attractive figures of nineteenth-century art, the very pivot of modernism, and Gauguin Tahiti portrays this crucial period of his life in all its color and drama. Of the hardback edition, John Richardson wrote in Vanity Fair: "This excellent catalogue sets the record straight." And writing in the New York Observer, Hilton Kramer declared it, "the most exhaustive account of the period that has ever been attempted in a single survey... well-written, scrupulously documented, and lavishly illustrated."