Women, Animals, and Foliage, from the Suite of Late Wood-Block Prints
1898/99
Medium
Wood-block print in black ink on thin ivory Japanese paper, partially laid down on thin white Japanese paper
Dimensions
Image: 16.3 × 30.5 cm (6 7/16 × 12 1/16 in.); Sheet: 22.8 × 30.5 cm (9 × 12 1/16 in.); Secondary support: 24.2 × 33.5 cm (9 9/16 × 13 1/4 in.)
Classification
woodcut
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
67028
Art Historical Context
In the late 1890s, Paul Gauguin, pioneering Post-Impressionist for his vivid depictions of Tahitian life and rejection of Western conventions, created this striking wood-block print, *Women, Animals, Foliage*, as part of his *Suite of Late Wood-Block Prints*. Produced during his second stay in Tahiti (1895–1901), the work captures an idyllic scene of Polynesian women amid animals and lush foliage, reflecting Gauguin's fascination with exoticism, spirituality, and a "primitive" ideal that contrasted Europe's industrialization. Printed in bold black ink on delicate thin ivory Japanese paper—par...
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 ...