Gauguin returns to the Pacific in a National Gallery exclusive exhibition

An Australian-first exhibition of French post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) provides a unique opportunity to see over 140 of his iconic works of art at the National Gallery in Canberra from 29 June to 7 October 2024. Curated by Henri Loyrette, esteemed scholar of 19th Century French art.

Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao is one of the most ambitious exhibitions the National Gallery of Australia has ever staged.

This landmark presentation provides a rare opportunity for visitors to follow the artist’s life journey – from his Impressionist beginnings in 1873 to his final destination in French Polynesia where he created some of his most renowned works, visions of Tahiti that glowed with an entirely new palette of brilliant colour. Visitors will experience the complexity and diversity of his artistic practice in oil paint, ceramic, wood relief and woodcut.

The National Gallery, in partnership with Art Exhibitions Australia and curator Henri Loyrette, brings Gauguin’s work back to the Pacific region for the first time – to the part of the world where he realised his desire for a new life and a purity of artistic expression.

M. Loyrette said, ‘This is the first exhibition devoted to Gauguin and Oceania: a survey of his entire corpus as seen from his final destination, the Marquesas.’

‘When Gauguin landed in the Marquesas in September 1901, he knew that he had reached his journey’s end; he had at last found his ‘true homeland’, the place to which he had always aspired. In the twenty months before his death, he continued to develop his art while, in his writings, he set out to review his career as a whole. This is the starting point for an exhibition that reveals that introspection and the art that preceded it, returning to the questions that haunted him as an artist – the challenges that he set himself and solved in his quest for his own identity. By then he felt able to write: ‘Standing at his easel, the painter is slave neither to the past nor the present, neither to nature nor his fellow-man. It is he, still and forever he,’ he said. Gauguin defined.

National Gallery Director, Dr Nick Mitzevich said Gauguin’s World promises to be an artistic drawcard when it opens at the National Gallery on Saturday 29 June 2024.

‘This exhibition offers a rare opportunity for Australians to personally witness the significant and enduring art of Gauguin, featuring some of his most recognised and acknowledged masterpieces. Many of the works were created in the Pacific region, particularly Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia.’

‘Like other contemporary and historic artists, Gauguin’s life and art have increasingly and appropriately been debated here and around the world. In today’s context, Gauguin’s interactions in Polynesia in the later part of the 19th Century would not be accepted and are recognised as such. The National Gallery will explore Gauguin’s life, art and controversial legacy through talks, public programs, a podcast series and films,’ Dr Mitzevich said.

Over 65 leading public and private lenders from as far as the United Kingdom, Japan, São Paulo, Tahiti and Abu Dhabi have generously agreed to share works of art from their collections. The National Gallery is particularly grateful to the Musée d'Orsay in Paris for generously supporting the exhibition as the major lender with 17 exceptional works from their collection.

Musée de Tahiti et des îles is also an important contributor to the exhibition, generously providing their works by Gauguin and important 19th Century Marquesan sculptural works, which will form a special component of the exhibition, providing additional context to Gauguin’s artistic practice and illuminating his years spent in French Polynesia.

To acknowledge Gauguin’s ties to the Pacific region, the National Gallery will welcome a cultural delegation from Tahiti including representatives from the Government of French Polynesia and a cultural dance group for the opening of the exhibition.

Organised in partnership with Art Exhibitions Australia and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Gauguin’s World provides an opportunity to reconsider Gauguin from a holistic perspective. Following its presentation in Canberra, Gauguin’s World will be staged at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, later in 2024.

Other activities during the season will include a display of collection works by contemporary artists from the Pacific and further afield, and an activation by Aotearoa / Pasifika collective SaVāge K’lub led by artist, poet and acti.VĀ.tor, Rosanna Raymond MNZM.

A fully illustrated publication will be published alongside the exhibition. Edited by exhibition curator Henri Loyrette and featuring his major new essay on Gauguin, the publication will include contributions from Gauguin experts Hiriata Millaud, Nicholas Thomas, Vaiana Giraud, Miriama Bono and Norma Broude.

Gauguin’s World has been made possible through the continued support and generosity of Principal Sponsor Mazda Australia, Principal Donor Singapore Airlines, News Corp, the Australian Government, the Government of French Polynesia and Minister for Tourism, and other valued individual and corporate supporters.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

CURATOR
Henri Loyrette, curator of Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao

KEY DATES
Media Preview | 27 June 2024 at 11am
Members Preview Day & Gauguin Symposium | 28 June 2024
Exhibition Dates | 29 June 2024 to 7 October 2024

EVENTS & PROGRAMMING
Conversation: We need to talk about Gauguin? | 23 March 2024
Aotearoa / Pasifika artist, poet and activator, Rosanna Raymond MNZM begins a conversation addressing the complex legacies of the Gauguin story.

Gauguin Symposium | 28 June 2024
A symposium will be held to coincide with the opening of Gauguin’s World. Speakers include Henri Loyrette, Hiriata Millaud, Nicholas Thomas, Miriama Bono and Vaiana Giraud.

EDITOR’S NOTES

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION TITLE
The exhibition’s Tahitian-language title Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao was developed by Dr Hiriata Millaud, whose essay in the Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao publication explores Gauguin’s knowledge of the Tahitian language.

Tōna Iho: meaning Gauguin’s soul, spirit, heart, thought, ideas, opinions, views.
Tōna Ao: meaning all what constitute and shape Gauguin’s world.

ABOUT THE LENDERS
Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao includes 140 works of art drawn from 65 leading public and private collections worldwide including: Musée d'Orsay Paris; National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh; National Gallery of Art, Washington; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Cleveland Museum of Art; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Louvre Abu Dhabi; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo.

ABOUT PAUL GAUGUIN
Born in Paris in 1848, Paul Gauguin’s voyages saw him travelling to parts of the world almost unimaginable to 19th Century society. His life as an intrepid traveller started in childhood when his family fled to Peru, escaping the 1848 revolution; they later returned to France, settling in Orléans. At 17, Gauguin joined the merchant marines and navy and adventured across the world. Back in Paris, he established himself as a stockbroker and amateur painter, exhibiting his first landscape at the Paris Salon of 1876.

Driven to explore adventurous new territories and capture this in his art, Gauguin travelled to Brittany and Arles, Panama, the island of Martinique in the Caribbean, capturing the connections between people and their surrounding landscapes. He observed and absorbed many influences, both from his travels and from the experience of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1889; the Tahitian, Polynesian and Cambodian pavilions in this great exhibition were transformative. In 1891 Gauguin left France for French Polynesia, living in Tahiti, where he created his most celebrated and compelling works.

Although largely unrecognised in his lifetime, Gauguin’s art is now celebrated – like that of his friend and rival Vincent van Gogh. Gauguin’s work defines Post-Impressionism and Symbolism: it was highly influential for later artists such as Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso. His vibrant use of colour and flattened decorative surfaces remains a motivating force for many artists in our times. Since his death in 1903, Gauguin has left two enduring and conflicting legacies – his art and himself.

ABOUT HENRI LOYRETTE
Henri Loyrette is French 19th Century art history scholar and former Director of the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée du Louvre, Paris. As Director of the Louvre, Loyrette is recognised for having expanded the display of the museum’s collection, and the museum itself, to the Louvre-Lens in Northern France and the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

Loyrette’s areas of specialisation are 19th-century painting and architecture. He is a renowned scholar and acknowledged expert on Edgar Degas, as well as Edouard Manet and other European artists of the period. His groundbreaking exhibitions include Degas at the Opéra at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, and National Gallery of Art, Washington (2019); The Origins of Impressionism (1994); Degas, 1834-1917 (1988) and Chicago: Birth of a Metropolis (1987). Loyrette has written major books on Degas and other 19th Century artists, including Gustave Eiffel, Viollet-le-Duc and Marcel Proust.

Loyrette has held important positions in French cultural organisations and has been widely honoured. When elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1997 he was its youngest member, and he is chair of both the Giacometti Foundation and Cité internationale des Arts.

ABOUT MIRIAMA BONO
Miriama Bono, as Director Musée de Tahiti et des Îles since 2017, was instrumental in commissioning the renovation of the museum and securing numerous international loans that returned significant objects of Polynesian culture to the museum. The new design and installations opened to international acclaim in February this year and has since been enthusiastically received by the community. Under Ms Bono's directorship, the museum has generously assisted in lending and advising on the inclusion of Polynesian material in Gauguin's World and has lent its important collection of works by Gauguin to the exhibition.

ABOUT NORMA BROUDE
A pioneering feminist scholar and specialist in 19th Century French and Italian painting, Norma Broude is known for her critical reassessments of Impressionism and post-Impressionism, and the work of Degas, Caillebotte, Cassatt, Seurat, and the Italian Macchiaioli. She co-edited four influential texts on feminist art history and co-curated Claiming Space: Some American Feminist Originators for the AU Art Museum. Her book, Gauguin's Challenge: New Perspectives after Postmodernism, was published in 2018.

ABOUT VAIANA GIRAUD
Vaiana Giraud is deeply involved in Polynesian culture, first as Head of the Communications Department and then as cultural events Production Manager at the Maison de la Culture in Papeete from 2003 to 2021. She is passionate about the literary approach to Polynesia in Gauguin's work. She holds a PhD in French literature; her doctoral thesis is entitled Paul Gauguin: the role and place of writing in his work.

ABOUT HIRIATA MILLAUD
Dr Hiriata Millaud is head of the Archives in Tahiti and Adviser to the Vice-President of the Government of Tahiti. She is a highly regarded linguist, providing new insights into how we understand Gauguin's use of Tahitian language. She oversees culture and heritage at the GIE Tahiti Tourisme. In the early 2000s, she was director of the Museum of Tahiti and the Islands – Te Fare Manaha.

ABOUT ROSANNA RAYMOND
Sistar S’pacific, aka Rosanna Raymond MNZM, is an innovator of the contemporary Pasifika art scene as a long-standing member of the art collective the Pacific Sisters, and the founding member of the SaVĀge K’lub. Raymond has achieved international renown for her performances, installations, body adornment and spoken word. A published writer and poet, her works are held by museums and private collectors throughout the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

ABOUT NICHOLAS THOMAS
Nicholas Thomas is an Australian Anthropologist, Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge, and Professor of Historical Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. He first visited the Pacific in 1984 to research his doctoral thesis on culture and change in the Marquesas Islands. He has written many acclaimed books about art, history and cross-cultural encounters, and collaborated in exhibition and publication projects with artists including John Pule and Mark Adams. His latest book Gauguin and Polynesia is due to be published in April 2024.

PRINCIPAL SUPPORTERS
Mazda Australia is the Principal Sponsor of Gauguin's World and steadfast partner of Art Exhibitions Australia for three decades. Their generous support of the visual arts over this period has been profoundly important, helping to bring significant works of art to millions of Australians.

MEDIA ENQUIRIES
KIRSTY NOFFKE
Communications Manager
P +61 2 6240 6756
E kirsty.noffke@nga.gov.au media@nga.gov.au