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We look across rolling, bright green pastures and honey-brown farmland to a cluster of buildings nestled beyond a copse of trees, along the horizon in this horizontal, stylized landscape painting. The scene is painted with mostly flat areas of color. Closest to us, low, vibrant green pastures are bisected by a narrow, gingerbread-brown path. The path meanders from the lower left corner of the composition to a metal gate, near the right edge of the painting. A short distance from us to our left, a man wearing navy-blue pants, shirt, and hat walks along the top of a hill, hands in pockets. Two black and white cows and one brown and white cow graze nearby. In the distance, the copse of trees is painted with pockets of pumpkin orange, lavender purple, sky blue, and spring and muted sage green. Beyond the trees, a white, square, two-story house with a spruce-blue roof sits within the grouping of buildings. Another white building with a blue roof stands a bit to our right. Wisps of white clouds dot a vivid blue sky, which is tinted with pale pink and lilac purple near the horizon. The artist signed and dated the work in harvest yellow against a mound of dark brown rocks in the lower right corner: “P. Gauguin 90.”

Paul Gauguin

Landscape at Le Pouldu, 1890

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 83

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 73.3 x 92.4 cm (28 7/8 x 36 3/8 in.)

framed: 103.2 x 122.9 x 10.4 cm (40 5/8 x 48 3/8 x 4 1/8 in.)

Credit Line

Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

Accession Number

1983.1.20

Artists / Makers

Paul Gauguin (painter) French, 1848 - 1903

Image Use

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Inscription

lower right: P. Gauguin. 90-

Provenance

Purchased 1890 by Octave Maus [1856-1919], Brussels; by inheritance to his wife Madeleine Maus, Brussels, until c. 1945; by inheritance to Paul Fierens [1895-1957], Brussels, by 1947;[1] his widow; sold 1957 to (Wildenstein & Co., London, New York and Paris);[2] sold 1957 to Mr. Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA; gift 1983 to NGA.

[1] Information provided by Bertrand Maus de Rolley in email correspondence with Belinda Thomson, August 2012, in NGA curatorial files. Lent by Fierens to exhibitions in Brussels in 1947 and Basel and Paris in 1949.

[2]See letter dated 14 December 1998 from Joseph Baillio of Wildenstein's.

Associated Names

Fierens, Paul
Maus, Madeleine
Maus, Octave
Mellon, Paul
Wildenstein & Co., Inc.

Exhibition History

1904: La Libre Esthétique, Brussels, 1904, no. 49.

1922: Les Maîtres de l'Impressionnisme et leur temps, Musée Royal des Beaux-Arts de Belguique, 1922, no. 18.

1928: Paul Gauguin 1848-1903. Kunsthalle, Basel, 1928, no. 69.

1928: Paul Gauguin, Galerie Thannhauser, Berlin, 1928, no. 48.

1947: Exposition de l’Art Vivant dans les Collections Privées Belges, Galerie Georges Giroux, Bruxelles, 2 – 19 June 1947, no. 33.

1949: Gauguin: Exposition du Centenaire, Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, 1949, no.22.

1949: Paul Gauguin, Kunstmuseum Basel, 1949-1950, no 39.

1959: Masterpieces of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Painting, National Gallery of Art, 1959, unnumbered catalogue, repro., as Brittany Landscape

1960: Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Collected by Yale Alumni: An Exhibition, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, 1960, no. 72, repro.

1966: French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 125, repro

1986: Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist

1988: The Art of Paul Gauguin, National Gallery of Art, Washington; The Art Institute of Chicago; Grand Palais, Paris, 1988-1989, no. 109.

1989: Gogen: Vzgliad iz Rossli, The State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad and the State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 1989

1998: Paul Gauguin, Tahiti, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Germany, 1998, no. 6, repro.

2001: Gauguin's Nirvana: Painters at Le Pouldu 1889-90, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, 2001, no. 12, fig. 60, as The Valley of Kerzellec, Le Pouldu.

2009: Meijer de Haan, le maître caché [A Master Revealed: Meijer de Haan], Joods Historisch Museum, Amsterdam; Musée d'Orsay, Paris; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Quimper, 2009-2010, no. 104, repro.

Bibliography

1929: Barth, Wilhelm. Paul Gauguin. Basel, 1929: 94-95, pl. XXI as Le Pouldu, (75 x 92 cm.) Privatbesitz Brüssel.

1964: Wildenstein, Georges. Gauguin. 2 vols. Paris, 1964: no. 398.

1966: French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966: repro. no. 125.

1966: Goldwater, Robert. "The Glory that was France." Art News 65 (March 1966): 49, repro.

1966: Kuh, Katherine. "Golden Loans for a Silver Anniversary." Saturday Review (19 March 1966): repro. 48.

1966: Young, Mahonri Sharp. "The Mellon Collections: The Great Years of French Painting." Apollo 83 (June 1966): 431, repro.

1972: Sugana, Gabriele Mandel. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Gauguin. Milan, 1972: no. 233, repro.

1981: Sugana, Gabriele Mandel. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Gauguin. Milan, 1981: no. 233, repro.

1985: European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 170, repro.

1988: Bretell, Richard R. The Art of Paul Gauguin. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Art Institute of Chicago; Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris. Washington, D.C., 1988: 189, no. 109, repro.

1993: Thomson, Belinda, ed. Gauguin by Himself. New York, 1993: no. 306, repro.

2000: Paul Gauguin: Von der Bretagne nach Tahiti. Ein Aufbruch zur Moderne. Exh. cat. Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, 2000: 92, repro.