Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889 [Hardcover]

Heather Lemonedes (Author), Belinda Thomson (Author), Agnieszka Juszczak (Author), Chris Stolwijk (Contributor), Moyna Stanton (Contributor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0940717603 | ISBN-13: 978-0940717602 | Publication Date: September 30, 2009

In 1889, Paris hosted the legendary Exposition Universelle (World's Fair), a massive cultural exhibition which transformed the face of French culture to come. The Eiffel Tower was built for it, the composer Claude Debussy first heard Javanese music there, and the painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), reacting against his exclusion from its arts component, organized an exhibit called L'Exposition de Peintures du Groupe Impressionniste et Synthesiste, on the walls of the Cafe Volpini, presenting the newest works by himself and his friends. It was the moment at which he "became Gauguin," for it was here that he premiered what is now known as the Volpini Suite, an amazing portfolio of 11 lithographs printed on radiant canary yellow paper, which marked the coalescence of his motifs (the fruitbearers, the mourning Eve, the woman in the waves) and the commencement of his mature style. The Suite also gives a chronicle of Gauguin's travels in Martinique, Brittany and Arles, and records the constellation of the Pont Aven group. Gauguin reconstructs this landmark exhibition, demonstrating the radicality of the works produced by Gauguin and his friends (Charles Laval, Leon Fauche, Emile Schuffenecker, Louis Anquetin, Georges Daniel, Emile Bernard, Louis Roy and Ludovic Nemo), and examining all paintings, woodcuts, ceramics, prints and drawings by Gauguin related to the show.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 247 pages
• Publisher: Cleveland Museum of Art (September 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0940717603
• ISBN-13: 978-0940717602
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 9.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,121,242 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How Gauguin became Gauguin, April 4, 2010

By 

Claude Reich (Florianopolis, Brazil and Paris, France) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Paul Gauguin: The Breakthrough Into Modernity (Hardcover)

This book is the catalogue for an exhibition held at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and the Cleveland Museum of Art and centers on a series of iconic prints (zincographs) that Gauguin showed during the 1889 World Fair in Paris. Being prevented from officially showing his art in the Fair itself, he chose to display it on the walls of Mr. Volpini's Café des Arts (alongside works by other artists belonging to the "synthetist movement"), which was located within the premises of the Fair. The "Volpini Suite", as this series later came to be known, is a concentrate of all Gauguin's art, his first breakthrough as a modern master, and is thoroughly studied here by experts in the field. The text is accompanied by beautiful illustrations of about 60 works by Gauguin and his friends of the Pont-Aven school (Emile Bernard, Louis Anquetin...), which makes this book an interesting and erudite (sometimes too erudite...)addition to the literature on the artist. Do not expect a complete retrospective on Gauguin though, as this is not the aim of this study.