Gauguin Portraits


Fascinating exhibition at the National Gallery looking at portraits painted by Gauguin.

I loved the leaflet that went with this show as it was very honest about Gauguin's life and I got the impression that, like me, the author liked the art but loathed the man. The opening line in the introduction to room 1 was “Gauguin was undoubtedly self-obsessed”. OK this was the room of self-portraits but the comment set the tone. In my notes in the leaflet I had already written “Can I slap him” on picture number 4!

All the way through I kept reading things which just made me loath him more. He was commissioned to paint a portrait of a Breton aristocrat’s daughter but he painted her with one of his own sculptures of a menstruating woman to represent her transition to womanhood. Needless to say the aristocrat refused to pay for it. Also the fact that in later life he called his studio in Polynesia “The House of Pleasure” and was by this time suffering from syphilis.

There were nice vistas set up through the rooms which showed the pictures off well and the colour in the work was stunning. The Tahitian pictures still have an exotic atmosphere and I liked that the commentary told you a lot more about the women he painted that I’d known before and tried to make it their story as well as his. I liked a room of hidden portraits such as the still life with a portrait ceramic shown here and a bouquet of flowers with a face in it.

Great art shame about the man!

Closes 26 January 2020

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