The Collection Of Portraits

An unusual portrait- Still Life With Hope was done a decade after the death of Van Gogh, but the sunflowers represent a surrogate portrait of Gauguin's old friend. 

Clovis Asleep depicts Gauguin's son, painted in 1884. 

Here we have another wider view.

Portrait Of Madame Roulin is an 1888 oil on canvas. Gauguin and Van Gogh both painted her, in different ways.

The exhibit did not gloss over Gauguin's complicated, flawed, problematic nature. He abandoned his family, spent time as a privileged colonialist in the South Pacific, and spent time there bedding young girls. Some of his work from this period makes use of native women as subjects. Melancholic (Faaturama) is an 1891 oil of a Tahitian woman in missionary dress.

A panel questions who the subject was for several of the paintings from this period, something he fictionalized in a travel journal.

Tehamana Has Many Parents is also known as The Ancestors Of Tehamana. The 1893 oil on canvas painting mixes the missionary dress with images of the Pacific spirituality.

I emerged from the exhibit back into the corridor leading to the glass tower. Tomorrow we start looking at some Canadian art.