Heads of Tahitian Women, Frontal and Profile Views
1891/93
Medium
Charcoal and wetted charcoal, with stumping and erasing, on cream wove paper, selectively fixed
Dimensions
41.3 × 32.5 cm (16 5/16 × 12 13/16 in.)
Classification
charcoal
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
4939
Art Historical Context
**Heads of Tahitian Women,al and Profile Views**1891/93) by Paul Gauguin the artist's fascination with Polynesian life during his transformative first stay in Tahiti. A leading Post-Impressionist, Gauguin rejected the industrialized West for the "primitive" beauty of the South Seas, arriving in 1891 amid economic hardship and a quest for spiritual renewal. This intimate double portrait study—frontal and profile views of two women—reflects his ethnographic gaze, blending observation with idealization to evoke an exotic, sensual otherworld. Executed in charcoal and wetted charcoal on cream wove...
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 ...