(4 Oct 2019) LEAD IN:
A new exhibit at London's National Gallery is exploring the portrait works of post-Impressionist Paul Gauguin.
In the #MeToo era, the French artist's "problematic" past is also under scrutiny. However it's something one of his descendants - his great-granddaughter - defends.
STORY-LINE:
The National Gallery in London is staging what's thought to be the first-ever exhibit dedicated solely to the portrait works of French post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin.
It shows how Gauguin used portraits to express himself and ideas about art. He had a far-reaching influence on artists, including Matisse and Picasso.
"It's one of the most direct of all the genres of painting," says exhibit curator, Christopher Riopelle.
"It is about people confronting people, but what we see in Gauguin is him really exploding that tradition, thinking about it in new ways, thinking about new things to bring into the portraiture that change it significantly."
The exhibit, which opens Monday (7 October), features over fifty works, including paintings, sculptures, prints and drawings.
The National Gallery owns just two Gauguin paintings and has two on loan.
The exhibit is being staged thanks to an international collaboration, including works from Paris' Musée d'Orsay and The National Gallery of Canada.
One room features solely self-portraits by Gauguin. Curators say he was "undoubtedly self-obsessed."
"He's obsessed with his own profile, on his nose and his sort of deep sunken shadowed eyes," says assistant curator Emily Burns.
"But with other people, he's not flattering, he's not doing an attractive portrait. Even his commissioned portraits, he doesn't try and flatter. And often they're not liked by the people who commissioned them. So, he really doesn't make it easy for people."
A key part of the exhibit is the artist's work on the Pacific island of Tahiti, French Polynesia.
Gauguin was fascinated by societies close to nature, far removed from industrialised Paris.
Searching for "unspoilt" non-Western culture, he travelled to the then French colony in 1891.
"For a long time, we thought these Tahitian portraits were sort of generic Tahitians, but now we understand that he knew these people very well. He was in constant contact with them," says Riopelle.
"They were friends, lovers, enemies, in some cases, and these images are portraits, they are him communing with people whom he knew very well."
Gauguin's life and art has increasingly come under scrutiny.
The National Gallery says Gauguin repeatedly entered into sexual relations with young girls while on Tahiti, marrying two of them and fathering children.
The first of those wives - seen in the painting "Meram metua no Tehamana" may have been 13-years-old when they first met, says The National Gallery.
In the #MeToo era, curators say they can't "try and hide things under the carpet."
"When you look at the portraits of women, for example, you have to know the background or the context. Otherwise you can't really engage and understand the portraiture," says Burns.
Mette Gauguin, 72-year-old great granddaughter of the artist, says his actions should be seen "in the context of the time."
Mette's grandfather was Gauguin's eldest son, Emile.
Mette shares her name with her great grandmother, Mette-Sophie Gad, who appears in one exhibit painting.
It was painted just months before the couple split, the subject is positioned looking away from the painter, avoiding eye contact.
Mette hopes visitors will "forget the life and look at the art."
"Gauguin Portraits" runs 7 October till 26 January 2020 at The National Gallery in London.
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