Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903) Famille Tahitienne,... Lot 47

Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903) Famille Tahitienne, Pencil signed with initials 'P.G.0' bottom left; also illegibly inscribed [in French] 'Epreuve unique/de Gauguin/AC' [?] bottom left, monotype and graphite on paper Sheet size: 16 3/4 10 1/4 in. (41.3 x 26cm) Executed circa 1902.Wildenstein & Co., New York, New York. Acquired directly from the above in 1975. Private Collection, New York, New York. EXHIBITED: " Paul Gauguin: Monotypes," Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, March 23-May 13, 1973, no. 98. LITERATURE: Richard S. Field, Paul Gauguin: Monotypes, an exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 1973, no. 98, p.121 (illustrated). NOTE: Widely recognized as a major figure in 19th century art, Paul Gauguin is best known as a Post-Impressionist who specialized in vibrant paintings of Tahiti and its natives. He was also a sculptor and highly accomplished printmaker, producing a large and diverse body of prints that includes woodcuts, lithographs, zincographs, drypoint etchings, and, as in the present work, monotypes. The monotype is a hybrid of sorts, occupying a unique space between printmaking and drawing. Indeed, Gauguin himself referred to his works in this medium as "printed drawings" (Richard S. Field, Paul Gauguin: Monotypes, Philadelphia Museum of Art, exhibition catalogue). Gauguin's first reference to monotypes is found in a letter of 1900 to the young Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard, in which he describes them as "experiments," writing: "I have just done a series of experiments in drawings with which I am fairly well pleased, and I am sending you a tiny sample. It looks like a print but it isn't" (Field, op. cit.). Gauguin would periodically send these "experiments" to Vollard, who offered them for sale, along with the artist's paintings, at his eponymous art gallery on rue Lafitte, then the nexus of the contemporary art world in Paris. In order to produce his monotypes, Gauguin a