Gauguin: Metamorphoses (Museum of Modern Art, New York Exhibition Catalogues)

This is the catalogue of the exhibition of the same name at New York's Museum of Modern Art from March to June 2014. The MoMA is the show's only venue, which means that not many people who love Gauguin's work will be able to see it. Fortunately, the catalogue does it full justice in every respect. When we think of Gauguin, we think first, of course, of oil on canvas (or burlap or sailcloth or whatever other fabric support was available and affordable), and then of the wonderful wood carvings that he always did alongside the paintings and that are also frequently represented in exhibitions of his work. But now we learn that all along we should have been thinking of Gauguin also in terms of graphic art, for it turns out that he was one of the most inventive and original graphic artists working in France in the last decade or so of the 19th century--a time when work on paper experienced an extraordinary revival. Gauguin concentrated his attention on this kind of work only in several spurts from 1889 until his death in 1903, but his contribution to the various mediums of graphic art was so significant and extensive in just those fourteen years that a contributor to the volume calls it one of "the most innovative bodies of work . . . in the history of printed art" (70). These are the works at the heart of the exhibition; more than three-quarters of them are on paper, and the rest are either paintings or sculptures.Four scholarly essays illuminate this relatively unfamiliar aspect of his oeuvre. Starr Figura, the museum's major curator of the exhibition and the volume's editor, introduces the subject and explains that "Metamorphoses" was the chosen title because the artist's "creative process involved repeating and recombining motifs from one work to another, and allowing them to metamorphose over time and across mediums" (15). The catalogue illustrates this procedure through many examples; to take just one, it is fascinating to follow how Gauguin treats the motif of a figure drinking water from a spring first as an oil on canvas from 1893 ("Pape moe"--"Mysterious Water"), and then, in the following year, as a watercolor monotype, an oak wood carving, and a woodcut printed in various stages. Other examples show him using the same subject to make zincographs, ceramics, drawings, transfer drawings and "oil transfer drawings," a medium that seems to have been his own invention. The other scholarly essays are descriptive and informative in this way, rather than intent on presenting new insights or the results of recent research, although they are no less authoritative for that. Elizabeth C. Childs, Professor of Art History at Washington University in St. Louis, has written extensively on Gauguin, exotic art, and the experience of culture in colonial Tahiti, and here contributes an essay on Gauguin's sculptures. Hal Foster, the Townsend Martin '17 Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton and a frequent writer on primitivism, considers Gauguin's situation to be that of "The Primitivist's Dilemma." And Erika Mosier, the MoMA's Paper Conservator, writes about his technical experiments in woodcut and oil transfer as forging, in her very nice formulation, "an aesthetic of ambiguity and evocation" (70) that helped set the stage for the stylistic innovations of the coming century.The catalogue itself consists of 185 plates reproduced mostly full- or half-page in excellent color and supported by an extensive number of illustrations in the body of the texts. This is an amazing collection of images, quite stunning in its scope and variety, and my only lament is that the sculpture in the round is photographed usually from only one angle, which sometimes results in "lost profile" reproduction of the flanking figures. There are three major sections, according to where the peripatetic Gauguin was located, and each section is subdivided into thematic units; e.g., the second section is "1889--1895: Paris-Brittany-Tahiti," and two of its thematic units are "Self-Portraits" and "Tahitian Eve." Each of the units is preceded by a page of introductory text and contains images identified by title, date, medium and location but not otherwise commented. The volume as a whole is delightfully designed and produced, with generously sized type, uncluttered layout and beautiful chapter frontispieces throughout. The scholarly apparatus consists of a map of Gauguin's travels and itinerary, a list of illustrated works, chronology, selected bibliography, a very good bibliography of Gauguin's own writings, and an index of plates, but no comprehensive index. In general, I would say that this is a volume one wants to have less for its scholarly usefulness than for the stunning quality of its visuals and for illuminating an area of Gauguin's oeuvre that has hitherto escaped much attention but which emerges here as even more radical and inventive than his paintings. This is an important exhibition that has gathered work from over fifty lenders internationally, and it is a great pity that it will be mounted only in New York, for it refines--if not to say redefines--our perception of one of the nineteenth century's major artists. Fortunately, the exhibition is superbly documented in this beautiful catalogue.

As an artist and longtime admirer/student of Gauguin's work I am familiar withhis sculpture, prints and drawings. The show at The Museum of Modern Artfor which this book is the catalog finally brings some of these works out of theshadow of his paintings and gives them their due. His ceramics and woodcarvings not only inspired many sculptural works by Picasso but are perhapsa bit more sensitively "achieved". While Derain and Matisse seem to get creditfor bringing the "primitivism" of tribal art to Western artists it was really Gauguinwith his copying of Polynesian sculptures and his own adaptations those worksthat began the trend. The Book itself is a fine volume with many color illustrations, perhaps a bit onthe small side, but given the number that is forgivable--especially in light of the many"states" of the prints reproduced. Concerning the text, most of the chapters arestraightforward, well written and informative. The only problem I have with thisfine book is the chapter written by Hal Foster. Did nobody involved in producingthis book see the iron knee of letting the most academic, white bread, sexless,prosaic intellectual self aggrandizer write about Gauguin's turning away fromwhite bread sexless western culture? Either Mr. Foster could not see the irony orsaw it all to well and set about to posthumously punish Paul because Paul had thetesticular fortitude to go search for his primal self/vision. Mr. Foster fails to see that all image making(and art for that matter) is a form of "fantasy" and a quest to find something essential or primal(except for perhaps pop art--a western invention). Western "culture" with it's monetary/materialisticbased views of "success" and "failure" doth suck(!) and is worthy of turning one's back on and isnecessary to leave behind if one is looking for true timeless vision. The largest irony of allthough is that through all the pain and labor of innovators like Gauguin and Van Gogh they couldnot imagine that the capitalist elite that they were estranged from are now making millions on theirvision.

Pictures are so small .....=_=“

I love it. I want to get all the (painting) books like this, I enjoy these all my life.

We saw the exhibit at MOMA.The book is a wonderful reminder of the images, and is very informative about Gaugin's techniques and work patterns

Good info

a surprisingly good book with a much better text than I've come to expect. Many plates and a serious examination of Gauguin's wood blocks.

Bought it as a gift for a special friend - she was delighted!