Product Description
In 1894, Paul Gauguin left Europe to spend two years in Tahiti, where he produced some of his most beautiful and best-known paintings. But he also created another masterpiece that has languished in obscurity for nearly 100 years: a detailed, entertaining journal and the sensuous woodblock prints and sketches made to accompany it. In this exquisitely designed edition, Chronicle Books is proud to publish together for the first time the evocative text and richly colored illustrations of Gauguin's Tahiti diary. Including Tahitian myths and legends, affectionate tales of Gauguin's encounters with the beautiful Tahitian people, and fascinating glimpses of the inspiration behind his most famous paintings, Noa Noa now assumes its rightful place among the masterworks of an extraordinary artist. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Authentic and interesting
Having just traveled to the Society Islands I wanted more info on Paul Gaugin.This translation of his journal provided insight I wouldnot have gotten otherwise.Combined with other biographies it rounded out the picture.Recommend it if you are interested in either the South Pacific Islands or Gaugin and his art.

noa noa, a-oka
I picked it up for a school project and it was fantastic. It's just a nice little journal, I feel there is more but I don't know for sure, this may be all there is in the tahiti journal of Paul Gauguin. Thepictures are great, the translation is very well done. Excellent read.

Gauguin's record of one of his stays in the South Sea Paradise.
This is a jewel of an art book by one of the greatest painters of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Originally considered too racy to publish in France, this 2005 English edition of the banned 1894 illustrated personal journal is probably how Paul Gauguin would have liked to have seen his text and art work combined for publication. The color and layout do justice to his artistic creations.The only change the artist might have still wished for was to have the book's format slightly larger since some of his woodcuts and the original journal itself are slightly larger than this reproduction of the work.
The book has a short 1962 introduction by W. Somerset Maugham that is somewhat amusing in that it tells how Maugham traveled to Tahiti to research Gauguin for a book he was considering writing about the island's most famous painter. He foundone of the actual huts where Gauguin had lived and worked and purchased one of the glass panels that Gauguin had painted for one of the hut's three doors. The children living in the hut had passed the time scratching the windows clean and already destroyed the other two door paintings. Maugham bought the half door containing the one surviving glass panel with its painting of"Eve, nude, with the apple in her hand" still intact for four hundred francs and had it shipped back to his home in New York. It was in his writing room at the time he wrote the introduction for this volume.
Relating the antidote of Maugham's good luck and prowess at art collecting was the only subject covered in the introduction. But it did illustrate how little remained in Tahiti of Gauguin's stay in the Island Paradise. There was even less left there after the famous writer's research visit.
Gauguin's text is much more interesting. He tries to capture some of the purity of the native culture that was being quickly destroyed by the European invasion. I particularly liked the stories of one of his treks into the land of the Gods near the center of the island as well as his story of taking a local wife (concubine) from among the natives. After the deal was made with the 13-year-old girl's parents and stepparents, she accompanied her new mate home. After eight days the woman was required to return to her home and if she had decided she didn't like the match, she never returned to him. That's how divorce was handled in Gauguin's Paradise.
Gauguin attempted to explain the secret and mysterious history, legends and religious beliefs of the natives. His paintings and wood block prints helped him with this documentation. Why he suddenly left his idyllic life in paradise after only a two year stay to return to France in 1896 isn't explained in his journal. He only describes the pain it caused him and his beautiful native mate who he never saw again.
This is a must read for any fan of Paul Gauguin's artwork. Unfortunately, it only answers a few of the many unanswered questions about the great painter's life. And new questions are brought up and then abandoned. Personally, I would love to have read more about the former cannibals he met while living in his South Seas Paradise. Too often Gauguin only touched on some really fascinating fact and then left the reader dangling and desperate to know more. It's still a beautifully illustrated must read!

Paul Gauguin history
This was very interesting reading just before going to the South Seas.Wonderful to see the islands as he saw them and described them in this journal.Well worth reading!

Understanding Gauguin
This is a lovely book... and, brief though it is, helped me to understand more about Gauguin's reasons behind his actions.I read it at a perfect time - when the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY was holding one of their most important exhibits on Gauguin and featured his wood cuts.It's a colourful, passionate and painful journey. ... Read more

Product Description
The lush, colorful paintings of Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) revolutionized modern painting at the turn of the last century. Gauguin's travels--which took him to Brittany, Panama, Martinique, Provence, Tahiti, and the Marquesas Islands--inspired some of the history of art's most imaginative visions of paradise. This engaging book will entrance art lovers with quality reproductions of his outstanding paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture in The Art Institute of Chicago's permanent collection.

Publication of Gauguin coincides with a major exhibition on Van Gogh and Gauguin organized by The Art Institute of Chicago with the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Lush, colorful artworks revolutionizing modern painting
Paul Gauguin was at the heart of the Post-Impressionist movement with his lush, colorful artworks revolutionizing modern painting a the turn of the 19th Century. Largely self-taught in a diversity of media including oil painting, printmaking, and ceramics, Gauguin came to his career as a Parisian artist relatively late in life, and went on to paint subjects drawn from where he would live ranging from Brittany and Martinique, to Tahiti, and the Marquesas islands. In Gauguin, art expert Britt Salvesen drew from research developed by Douglas W. Druick and Peter Kort Zegers, enhanced with 79 superbly presented illustrations of which 52 are in color and 27 are duotone. Gauguin is a very highly recommended addition to personal, academic, and community library art history reading lists and reference collections in general, as well as being strongly commended to students of the life and work of Paul Gauguin in particular. ... Read more

Product Description
This volume is part of a new series that portrays the lives and works of some of the world's greatest artists and their influence on the world of art. Each book includes: reconstruction artwork of particular scenes from the artist's life; examples of the artist's work with text to link their life and work; life story and photographs of the artist; and a timeline. ... Read more

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Paul GauguinImages from the South Seas

By Eckhard Hollmann

Paul Gauguin (1848 –1903) continues exert an extraordinary fascination through both his life and his works. This exciting study focuses on the years from the artist ’s first journey to Tahiti in 1891 to his death in the South Pacific in 1903. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Paul Gaugin: Images from the South Seas
I was very happy to receive this book on a timely basis.It is beautiful and in great condition.

thanks.

Couldn`t put it down
This survey of Gauguin's later work and career provided an excellent complement to Maugham's "The Moon and Sixpence". The book provides the historical background to separate the facts from the rumors that circulated after his death. The excellent reproductions (all in color) are well chosen to complement the text and sequenced so that they are on or near the pages on which they are discussed. The book is an easy read and an excellent bargain for a hardbound book so well illustrated. ... Read more

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This book's extensive text and accompanying photos reveal the ethnographic sources of Gaugin's fascination with the iconography of his native Tahitian tongue. Color/b&w illustrations. ... Read more

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Great painter’s 64 letters to his friend and fellow artist Georges Daniel de Monfreid intimately reveal his intense struggles to live and work in Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands in the last 12 years of his life. Subjects range from problems working with paints and canvas in the tropics to thoughts on artists of the past and present; collection offers many rewarding insights into the psychology of the man and the artist.
... Read more

Product Description
This is the catalogue of the exhibition which opened at the National Gallery of Art in May 1988 before travelling to the Art Institute of Chicago and the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris. The exhibition contained more than 200 of Gauguin's works of art, including paintings, ceramics, sculpture, drawings and prints. The text, by curators of the participating museums, all experts on Gauguin, illuminates and reappraises early works and also suggests new approaches to the study of Gauguin and his art. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Beautiful book
I could not believe how beautiful this book is both color and reproduction are excellent. ... Read more

Product Description
Technique and Meaning in the Paintings of Paul Gauguin provides a new interpretation of Gauguin's art.Reconstructing the artist's changing painting techniques, Jirat-Wasiutynski and Newton demonstrate that Gauguin's technical choices were meaningful. Beginning in 1886, Gauguin produced monumental figure paintings using full-scale cartoons to prepare them in a manner similar to that of the Quattrocento fresco painters. In the following years, brushwork and impasto disappeared from his paintings, producing works that contemporaries described as "primitive" and "decorative." Indeed, the authors argue, Gauguin's abandonment of oil painting was deliberate and signaled a rejection of modern Western culture and society. ... Read more

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A book on post-Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), written especially for young readers. The author tells the story of Gauguin's life and work in a style which should appeal to those encountering the artist for the first time. The reader learns how Gauguin, a successful Paris stockbroker, left his family to sail off to Tahiti on an artistic quest that produced some of the late 19th century's most beautiful and original paintings. Greenfeld conveys a strong sense of Gauguin's personality and leaves the reader with an understanding of his struggle to become an artist of significance. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Paul Gauguin (First Impressions)
After reading W. Sumerset Maugham's `The Moon and Sixpence' said to have been based on the life of Paul Gauguin, (can someone tell me why that title?), I decided to read a Gauguin's biography just to see exactly what is meant by "Based on the life of..." means. So naturally I went to the library; free. I checked out Howard Green's book: "Paul Gauguin (First Impressions)"; what luck, it was the only one on the shelf. It is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read and the art work reproduction and colors are just glorious and I am now so turned onto Gauguin's painting and just have to have a copy of this book for my own. The book is wonderfully written and portrays Paul Gauguin as not a very pleasant man, as did Maugham. But how do you separate the Man from his art or his body of work; and should you? What drives someone to dedicate his life to painting and abandon his responsibilities, his children? He's dead now and I can love his art and dislike the man; perhaps great art only comes from great suffering. Can't wait till my copy arrives. ... Read more

Product Description
Always on the move - he was brought up in Lima and worked in Paris and Brittany - Paul Gauguin left France for good in 1891 to settle in Tahiti. The canvases he sent back were to have a profound influence on 20th-century art; their revolutionary use of brilliant pure colour and rejection of naturalism were an inspiration to a generation of younger artists, from Matisse to Picasso. Indispensible to an understanding of this complex man and the artistic, commercial and personal pressures that drove him, are his own letters and other writings, which contain explanations of pictures that meant a great deal to him and what he was trying to achieve in his work, and evocative descriptions of Tahitian life. This is a collection of extracts from Gauguin's correspondence - to his wife in Denmark, his agent in Paris and his friends, including Strindberg and Van Gogh - and from his journals "Noa Noa" and "Avant et Apres". The extracts are juxtaposed with illustrations of his oil paintings, watercolours and letter sketches. ... Read more

Product Description
This first comprehensive research guide and annotated bibliography of Paul Gauguin includes information on more than 1500 books and articles on the artist as well as a comprehensive chronology and list of exhibitions. The secondary bibliography is arranged by topics and includes citations on the artist's life and career, his relationships with contemporary artists in France, including Vincent van Gogh, his life and work in Panama, Martinique, Tahiti, and the Marquesas Islands, his oeuvre in general and in various media, self-portraits, iconography, and more. ... Read more