A Grazing Cow; Head of a Woman with Her Hand on Her Cheek, and Head of a Man with His Hand on His Ear [verso]
1884-1888
![A Grazing Cow; Head of a Woman with Her Hand on Her Cheek, and Head of a Man with His Hand on His Ear [verso] by Paul Gauguin](https://images.artheonmuseum.org/nga/thumb/a-grazing-cow-head-of-a-woman-with-her-hand-on-nga-74248.webp)
Medium
pen and brown ink and graphite on wove paper
Dimensions
overall: 16.9 x 22.5 cm (6 5/8 x 8 7/8 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-E
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
The Armand Hammer Collection
Accession Number
1991.217.56.b
Art Historical Context
In the mid-1880s, Paul Gauguin, a pioneering Post-Impressionist, created this intimate double-sided drawing on wove paper using pen and brown ink with graphite. Titled *A Grazing Cow; of a Woman with Her Hand on Her Cheek, and Head of a with His Hand on His [verso]*, it captures the artist's early experimentation during a pivotal period. On one side, a serene grazing cow evokes the rural simplicity Gauguin admired, while the verso features expressive portrait studies— a woman in thoughtful repose and a man gesturing attentively—hinting at his growing interest in psychological depth and human e...
About the Artist
Paul Gauguin · 1848–1903
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French Post-Impressionist painter whose bold experiments with color, form, and subject matter made him one of the most influential figures in the transition from 19th-century art to modernism. His rejection of European civilization for the perceived authenticity of 'primitive' cultures established an archetype of artistic exile that continues to resonate. Gauguin's ...