Paul Gauguin
This work is on display in the Gauguin & Laval in Martinique exhibition in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam only to 13 January 2019. Be quick if you want to see it; originally it's from a private collection. :)
Discontent with what they considered to be the decadent Parisian way of life, Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) and Charles Laval (1861–1894) travelled to the French island of Martinique. In the short time that they stayed on the exotic Caribbean island, they created a series of exquisite artworks. The trip had a huge impact on their further artistic development.
Gauguin & Laval in Martinique features a wide selection of the warm, colorful paintings created by Gauguin and Laval on the island, together with their preparatory studies and large, elaborate pastels. This is the first time that so many works from their Martinican period are being displayed together.
The exhibition includes a large selection of works from the three sketchbooks that Gauguin used in Martinique. After Gauguin’s death, these sketchbooks were dismantled and the pages found their way into private and museum collections all around the world. Most of these drawings and sketches have never before been published or exhibited.
The sketches in the exhibition offer a good introduction to how Gauguin set to work. For example, in this sketch, we see how he sketched numerous figures and experimented with posture and color handling before adding the figures to his paintings.
P.S. Here you can read about Paul Gauguin's The Vision after the Sermon, a painting from the French period.