Oil paint, crayon and charcoal on paper
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Contemporary Art Society
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/paul-gauguin-1144" aria-label="More by Paul Gauguin" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Paul Gauguin</a>
Tahitians
Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917
actions: expressive
actions: postures and motions
adults
architecture
countries and continents
ethnicity
features
hill
jungle
landscape
man
people
places
Polynesian
sitting
standing
Tahiti
talking
verandah
woman
paper unique oil paint crayon charcoal
1 March 2008 – 22 June 2008
2008-06-22
1 March 2008 – 22 June 2008
2008-06-22
2008-03-01
Wallraf Richartz Museum (Cologne, Germany)
1 July 2008 – 15 September 2008
2008-09-15
2008-07-01
Palazzo Strozzi (Florence, Italy)
2008-03-01
Impressionism - lights meets canvas
Loan-out
30 September 2010 – 5 June 2011
2011-06-05
30 September 2010 – 16 January 2011
2011-01-16
2010-09-30
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2010-09-30
Gauguin: Maker of Myth
Exhibition
22 March 2013 – 23 June 2013
2013-06-23
22 March 2013 – 7 July 2013
2013-07-07
2013-03-22
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (Middlesbrough, UK)
http://www.visitmima.com/
2013-03-22
Tracing the Century
Loan-out
Tahitians
support: 854 × 1019 mm
frame: 946 × 1126 × 60 mm
Presented by the <a href="/search?gid=999999975" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Contemporary Art Society</a> 1917
<p><b>Paul Gauguin</b> 1848-1903</p>
<p><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gauguin-tahitians-n03167" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N03167</span></a> <b>Tahitiens</b> (Tahitians) <i>c</i>.1891</p>
<p>Not inscribed 
<br/>Oil, crayon and charcoal on paper mounted on millboard, 33 5/8 x 40 1/8 (85.5 x 102) (irregular) 
<br/>Presented by the Contemporary Art Society 1917 
<br/><i>Prov</i>: With Galerie Druet, Paris; Roger Fry, London, 1910 or 1911; CAS 1911 
<br/><i>Exh: Manet and the Post-Impressionists</i>, Grafton Galleries, London, November 1910-January 1911 (128); <i>Works by Post-Impressionist Painters</i>, United Arts Club, Dublin, January-February 1911 (6), lent by Roger Fry; Modern Art including Works by the Post-Impressionists, Liberty Buildings, Liverpool, March-April 1911 (42); <i>Loan Exhibition of Works organised by the CAS</i>, Manchester City Art Gallery, December 1911-January 1912 (9), lent by the CAS; <i>The CAS: First Public Exhibition in London</i>, Goupil Gallery, London, April 1913 (69); <i>The CAS: Exhibition of Purchases and Gifts</i>, 53 Grosvenor Street, London, June 1914 (38); <i>Special Exhibition of Modern Paintings in Oil and Water Colours lent by the CAS</i>, Belfast Art Gallery, November 1914 (51); <i>Silver Jubilee Exhibition of some of the Works acquired by the CAS</i>, Tate Gallery, July-August 1935 (44); <i>Acquisitions of the CAS</i>, Tate Gallery, September-October 1946 (15); <i>40,000 Years of Modern Art</i>, ICA, Academy Hall, London, December 1948-January 1949 (135); <i>Paul Gauguin: Paintings, Engravings and Sculpture</i>, Tate Gallery, September-October 1955 (not in catalogue); <i>CAS: The First Fifty Years 1910-60</i>, Tate Gallery, April-May 1960 (154, repr.) 
<br/><i>Lit</i>: Douglas Cooper, <i>The Courtauld Collection</i> (London 1954), pp.68, 73; Douglas Cooper, 'Catalogue of the Courtauld Collection' in <i>Burlington Magazine</i>, XCVI, 1954, p.120; Georges Wildenstein, <i>Gauguin</i> (Paris 1964), No.516, Vol.1, p.211 repr. as 'Tahitiennes au Repos' 1894 
<br/><i>Repr: Art Décoratif</i>, XXV, 1911, p.182 as 'Tahitiens (Esquisse)'; Arsène Alexandre, <i>Paul Gauguin, sa Vie et le Sens de son Oeuvre</i> (Paris 1930), p.129 as 'Etude à la Martinique'</p>
<p>This picture is hard to date exactly owing to its unfinished state and is also exceptional in being done in oil on <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a>, but most probably it was made about 1891 during Gauguin's first stay in Tahiti. Gauguin began his work in Tahiti by making a number of studies in order to come to terms with his new subject-matter. On 11 March 1892 he wrote to Daniel de Monfreid: 'I work more and more but so far only studies or rather documents ... If they aren't of use to me later they will be useful to others.' It can be compared, for instance, with 'Two Women on a Beach' (Musée du Louvre), 'Te Faaturuma' (Worcester Art Museum, USA) and 'Road in Tahiti' (Toledo Museum of Art), all of which are dated 1891. Wildenstein dates it 1894, that is to say during Gauguin's stay in France between his two visits to Tahiti, because of its analogies with 'Arearea No Varua Ino' (Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen) and particularly with 'The Siesta' (Mrs Ira Haupt collection, New York), which depicts four Tahitian women squatting or reclining on the floor of a similar hut. However 'The Siesta' is undated, and seems much more likely to have been painted earlier than 1894, while he was still in Tahiti.</p>
<p>Miss Marjorie Strachey intended to purchase this picture (which was priced £30) at the 1910 exhibition <i>Manet and the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/post-impressionism" title="Glossary definition for 'Post-Impressionism'"><span>Post-Impressionists</span></a></i> and put her name down for it. Roger Fry, however, persuaded her that it was her duty to allow this work to go to the nation through the Contemporary Art Society, and she accordingly stood down in favour of the Society (Mrs Dorothy Bussy in letter of 17 March 1954).</p>
<p><b>Published in</b>: 
<br/>Ronald Alley, <i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.269-70, reproduced p.269</p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-15T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
actions: expressive actions: postures and motions adults architecture countries and continents ethnicity features hill jungle landscape man people places Polynesian sitting standing Tahiti talking verandah woman