Paul Gauguin
Arearea II (Joyousness)

Public Domain

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Artist Paul Gauguin(French, 1848–1903)French, 1848–1903

CultureFrench

Titles

Arearea II (Joyousness)

Date1894

PlaceMarquesas Islands, French Polynesia

MediumGouache and watercolor on linen

Dimensionsmaximum dimensions of fan-shaped image: 11 1/4 × 23 in. (28.6 × 58.4 cm)
framed: 22 1/2 × 33 1/2 inches (57.2 × 85.1 cm)

Credit LineJohn A. and Audrey Jones Beck Collection, gift of Audrey Jones Beck

Object number77.372

Current Location

The Audrey Jones Beck Building

225 Beck Galleries

On view

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Department

European Art, Beck Collection

Special Collections

Object Type

PAINTING

Provenance[Ambroise Vollard, Paris, by 1906] [1]; Gaston Brunaud (Saintes, France, 1854–Paris, 1918), Paris, by 1913 [2]; [purchased by Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris, 6 August 1913] [3]; purchased by Max Linder (1883–1925), 2 May 1914 [4]; Marcel Kapferer, Paris [5]; [Wildenstein and Co., New York] [6]; purchased by Mary and Sidney F. Brody, Los Angeles, by 1956; [Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, "Important Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Paintings, Drawings, and Sculptures from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Sidney F. Brody,” 19 October 1977, lot 10, illus. in color]; purchased by Mrs. Audrey Jones Beck, Houston, 1977; given to MFAH, 1977.

[1] Vollard was the lender to the 1906 Salon d’Automne. While Vollard met Gauguin when the artist was in France between 1893 and 1895, he was buying the artist’s work from other sources by December 1896. Marc S. Gerstein, “Paul Gauguin’s ‘Areaarea,’” “Bulletin”, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, vol. 7, no. 4 (Fall 1981): 5.

[2] Jean-Paul Gaston Brunaud was in Papeete, French Polynesia, by May 1885, when he married a local woman. Their son was born there in 1889. Gauguin arrived in 1891.

[3] Wildenstein (1964), no. 469.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Wildenstein (1964) includes Kapferer but does not provide dates.

[6] Digitized on WPI website: https://view.publitas.com/wildenstein-plattner-institute-ol46yv9z6qv6/c-r_paul_gauguin_wildenstein_institute/page/209 (Accessed by Julia May Boddewyn, 2 December 2024).

Exhibition HistorySalon d'Automne, Paris, “Paul Gauguin,” 1906, no. 92, loaned by Vollard.

Wildenstein and Company, New York, “Loan exhibition: Gauguin, for the benefit of the Citizens' Committee for Children of New York City, Inc., 5 April–5 May 1956, no. 36, as “Tahitian Fan,” c. 1892, illus. in b/w, p. 52, lent by Mr. and Mrs. Sidney F. Brody.

Art Institute of Chicago, “Gauguin: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Sculpture,” 12 February–29 March 1959; traveled to Metropolitan Museum of Art, 21 April–31 May 1959, no. 107.

Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Signed lower right: P. Gauguin

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Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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