St. Louis Magazine – July 2019

Paul Gauguin; “Landscape from Tahiti”, c. 1893 July 2019 stlmag.com Ēĕ

“Man leaves job to
pursue other, more
meaningful inter-
ests” is a theme
that’s very of the
moment, but rarely
does it effect a monumental change.
Not so in the 19th century. That’s
when—in 1882, to be precise—the
French stock market crashed and
Paul Gauguin, the not-yet-famous
painter, printmaker, and sculptor,
lost his job as a broker and decided
to make art. It wasn’t as much a snap
decision as it might seem: Gauguin,
who would go on to influence Picasso,
form a creative (if volatile) relationship
with van Gogh, and help usher in the
era of modern art, was a collector of
paintings by Cézanne, Manet, Monet,
and Pissarro. Post-employment, he
set sail, and from locations including
Brittany, Martinique, and Tahiti, the
bohemian Gauguin created. A new
exhibit at the Saint Louis Art Museum,
“Paul Gauguin: The Art of Invention,”
opening July 21, looks at these travels
by way of paintings, prints, sculpture,
ceramics, and writings by the maverick
artist, most on loan from Copenha-
gen’s Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek.
Sorted into six themes, the exhibit
showcases not only Impressionist
works including Woman Sewing and
Tahitian Woman With a Flower but also
the run-up to abstraction. “In terms of
the wider narrative of the rise of mod-
ern art, Gauguin’s largest contribution
is looking forward to abstraction, one
of the great narratives of 20th-cen-
tury art,” says curator Simon Kelly.
“Gauguin’s work from the mid-1890s
onward really anticipates that.” —A.W.

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“PAUL GAUGUIN:

THE ART OF INVENTION”

Downtown St. Louis • Open daily: 10am–5pm

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