Head of a Tahitian Woman
1891/93, with later additions 1894/95
Medium
Pen and brush and black ink, with green, blue, yellow and white gouache, over pen and brown ink and touches of graphite, on parchment
Dimensions
31.8 × 24.2 cm (12 9/16 × 9 9/16 in.)
Classification
prints and drawing
Department
Prints and Drawings
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
220046
Rights
Public Domain
Art Historical Context
In the lush vibrancy of Paul Gauguin's Post-Impressionist oeuvre, *Head of a Tahitian* captures the artist's profound encounter with Polynesian culture during his first to Tahiti in 1–93. Created amid this pivotal period and enhanced with additions in 1894–95, the work reflects Gauguin's quest to escape European industrialization for an idealized, primitive paradise. He portrayed Tahitian subjects with bold, simplified forms and symbolic intensity, romanticizing indigenous life while critiquing Western modernity—a hallmark of his Primitivist style. This intimate drawing on parchment (31.8 × 24.2 cm) showcases Gauguin's masterful mixed-media technique: subtle graphite touches and brown ink underdrawing build the form, overlaid with dynamic pen-and-brush black ink and vibrant gouache in green, blue, yellow, and white. Parchment's textured, luminous surface enhances the work's exotic allure, lending a tactile, almost sculptural quality rare in prints and drawings. Housed in the Art Institute of Chicago's Prints and Drawings Department, it exemplifies Gauguin's innovative fusion of drawing and color, bridging his oil paintings and woodcuts. A poignant artifact of cultural exchange—and tension—this piece invites visitors to ponder Gauguin's gaze on the "exotic Other," blending admiration with colonial fantasy in a single, evocative portrait.
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 ...