Two Tahitian Women in a Landscape

Created in 1887, this monotype captures a pivotal moment in Gauguin's artistic evolution—just before his first journey to Tahiti but already imagining the South Pacific paradise that would define his career. At 39, Gauguin had recently abandoned his stockbroker life to pursue painting full-time, exhibiting with the Impressionists but rapidly developing his own bold, synthetist style characterized by flat planes of color and simplified forms. This work reveals his growing fascination with non-Western subjects and his rejection of European artistic conventions. The unusual technique—watercolor and gouache over a monotype matrix on delicate Japanese paper—demonstrates Gauguin's experimental approach and his interest in printmaking that would later produce powerful woodcuts. Interestingly, this work predates his actual arrival in Tahiti by four years (he wouldn't sail until 1891), suggesting these are imagined Tahitian women rather than observed subjects. This romanticized vision of island life reflects the 'primitivist' impulses that would drive Gauguin to seek refuge from Western civilization in French Polynesia, where he created his most famous works like 'Ia Orana Maria' and 'Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?'