Gauguin

1924 · 78251 — 1924. Fine. s. d. 1924 9.30 x 7.80 cm Une feuille Original proof likely unique of this intermediate state of a woodcut drawn and engraved by George-Daniel de Monfreid after a watercolor by Paul Gauguin. Print on fine cream laid paper annotation by the artist in the left-hand margin. Woodcut drawn and engraved from the first watercolor of the Noa Noa manuscript pasted on a page of text of the famous album. The final woodcut will serve as the head of chapter X of the first true illustrated edition of Noa Noa published by Crès in 1924 the first illustrated work from Paul Gauguin and a majestic tribute to this precursor of modern art. Superb and significant engraving of the work opening Paul Gauguin's manuscript engraved by his closest friend and executor the artist George-Daniel de Monfreid heir to the album he would offer to the French State in 1927. This likely unique proof part of 17 known test woodcuts from the project to prematurely publish Noa Noa all made on various fine papers and annotated by the artist. Woodcut engraved from the watercolor inaugurating one of the painter's most beautiful albums symbolizing the Tahitian art of living between the nourishing sea and earthly pleasures. It is from the original illustrated manuscript of Noa Noa brought back from Tahiti by Segalen on the artist's death in 1903 that Monfreid began producing this fundamental work from as early as 1904. This is the second version of this “to read and look at” notebook. The first manuscript written on the return of his first voyage and entrusted by Gauguin to Charles Morice in 1893 responded to a different project. Gauguin had composed only the text interspersed with blank pages for Morice's poems. But after several years without news Morice preferred to publish a version entirely rewritten by himself in 1901. Gauguin therefore copied his manuscript and illustrated it during his second stay in Polynesia with sketches watercolors and collages. This album that the artist enriched and safely preserved until his death is preserved today at the Musée d'Orsay. It is therefore from this manuscript the only one illustrated that Monfreid composed the edition of Gauguin's Noa Noa. However although Monfreid's publication was forward it took more than twenty years to complete in part due to a copyright dispute with Charles Morice who wanted to be co-author of the forthcoming edition and whose poems would eventually be preserved. The result of several years of reflection and work the 1924 edition is both faithful to the watercolors and woodcut engravings illustrating the precious manuscript and to the whole of Gauguin's Tahitian work who died in indifference. Monfreid thus engraves several drawings from the original notebook and enriches it with woodcuts made from other works of which he is the custodian. Some of these compositions combine several paintings while scrupulously respecting the artist's line transforming the work into a true journey through the painter's works. The very choice of using wood engraving is a tribute to this technique prized by Gauguin who in Pont-Aven produced 10 woodcuts to illustrate his manuscript between his two Polynesian stays. The intermediate woodcuts until then unknown testify to the slow work of composition to restore the artistic richness of Gauguin's work by his most faithful artistic companion and first champion: “When I saw Gauguin for the first time I was greatly disconcerted by the details of art that radiated from his works as well as from the conversations of this extraordinary man. You immediately felt that he was the Master” in L'Hermitage 1903. unknown