Tahitian Women Bathing

Paul Gauguin

1892 · Oil on paper, laid down on canvas · Robert Lehman Collection

Dreaming of a paradise where he could “listen to the silence of beautiful tropical nights,” Gauguin set off for Tahiti in June 1891. While at first Tahitian Women Bathing resembles the artist’s Polynesian paintings, it was not painted in oil on canvas, but rather in oil on paper, and was begun as a sheet of working drawings. The large sheet was later mounted on canvas, retouched, and varnished, presumably to ready the work for sale. The unusual evolution of this picture from a sheet of working drawings provides insight into the artist’s methodology as a draftsman and painter, and also accounts for its compositional disharmony.

Artist

Paul Gauguin

Date

1892

Medium

Oil on paper, laid down on canvas

Department

Robert Lehman Collection

Credit line

Robert Lehman Collection, 1975