American art lovers will find only one place in the U.S. where they will be able to see Gauguin’s World, an exclusive collection of Paul Gauguin’s paintings, sculptures, prints, and writings — the Museum of Fine Arts. Houston.
More than 150 pieces from around the world make up the collection, organized by independent curator Henri Loyrette, former director of the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and leading scholar of 19th-century French painting. Gauguin’s World will be on display from November 3, 2024 through February 16, 2025. It promises to offer new perspectives on the artist’s life and work.
The Houston showing follows the exhibition’s debut in Australia in June, at the National Gallery of Art, Canberra.
Paul Gauguin was a prolific artist throughout the 19th century, working across a variety of media. Born in Paris and moderately successful in his lifetime, Gauguin would come to be recognized for his use of color and styles that were successors to, yet distinct from, Impressionism. Among his most-known works were those he created during his last years in Oceania.
Gauguin’s World chronicles what curator Loyrette characterizes as Gauguin’s “inner quest for elsewhere,” and will be organized across six galleries. It presents the arc of Gauguin’s career from the 1870s through his final years, with half of the exhibition devoted to Gauguin’s work in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands.
The works on display come from 65 public and private collections worldwide, including the Musée d’Orsay in Paris; National Galleries of Scotland; National Gallery of Art in Washington; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; the National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo; and more. The Musée de Tahiti et des îles has lent both their Gauguins and important 19th-century Marquesan sculptural works to the exhibit.
“Gauguin’s World will offer an exceptional opportunity to understand the astonishing range of the artist’s achievement,” said Ann Dumas, MFAH consulting curator for the exhibition in a press release announcing the opening. “Fusing influences as diverse as European Old Masters, Peruvian potters and Egyptian tomb painters, Gauguin created not only sumptuous and richly colored paintings, but also developed entirely original methods of print making, and sculptures in wood and ceramic, dissolving conventional boundaries between art forms. His influence on avant-garde has been profound and continues in our own time.”
The exhibition is organized by Art Exhibitions Australia; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
