Paul Gauguin's - Rare Doors - at NOMA |
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| Saturday, 22 April 2006 15:57 |
 New Orleans, LA - For the first time in over a decade a rare pair of glass doors painted by Paul Gauguin are on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Only two known pair of doors were painted by the famous French artist; the other set is in the collection of the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris. Paul Gauguin, along with Van Gogh, was one of the major post-impressionist painters. A master artist and influential founder of modern art, he abandoned European civilization to spend his days in the rugged Marquesas Islands of Tahiti - rejecting "everything that is artificial and conventional." His interest in native, unspoiled cultures was inspired by his Peruvian grandmother and mother and the unsullied South American locale in which they lived. Rupe Tahiti, (rupe means hurrah in Tahitian), the first doors, were painted in Papeete, Tahiti, between 1891-1893, during Gauguin’s long-anticipated trip to the island. He returned in 1895 and remained there until his death in 1903. The six panes, oil on reverse-painted glass, are typical of Gauguin’s Tahitian style, featuring bold flat colors with a painting of two Tahitian women—flora and fauna (peacock, crawfish, rabbit etc). Within these panes the artist creates a stained glass effect flattening the forms with color and outlining them in black. According to local lore, Gauguin’s landlady, Madame Charbonnier, was a notorious busybody and gossip, whose favorite pastime was spying on her tenants. Gauguin painted the doors to his residence in order to gain privacy.
English painter and muralist, Stephen H. W. Haweis purchased the glass doors prior to 1913 and was so inspired by Gauguin’s creation that he began working in stained glass and went on to design windows for New York famous St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Church of St. John the Divine. The second pair of doors was created after 1895 in Tahiti, and featured a young girl holding a coconut, a flowering tree and a rabbit. That work of art was acquired by the yet another Englishman, writer W. Somerset Maugham. Of the Gauguin doors, John Webster Keefe, NOMA’s Curator of Decorative Arts, says, “Not only is it a rare and major work by a major 19th century French painter, but it is a notable addition to our glass collection.” It was not until after his passing that Gauguin's genius for color harmonies and use of large flat areas of non-naturalistic color were recognized by the art world. Paul Gauguin took his greatest inspiration from native subjects and indigenous peoples, and his work took on a power and profound sense of mystery from the tropical colors and Polynesian culture of the South Seas. Paul Gauguin's art has within it a certain power expressed through simplicity and local charm. Visit the New Orleans Museum of ArtClick on logo below to add this article to your favorite Social Website ~ |
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