National Gallery of Australia acquires painting by Paul Gauguin

The blue roof or Farm at Le Pouldu is currently on display in the major exhibition Gauguin’s World: Tōna Iho, Tōna Ao. The exhibition traces Gauguin’s artistic journey and global travel – from his Impressionist beginnings in 1873 to his final destination in French Polynesia. The newly acquired painting is a key example from his Brittany period. Following the exhibition, the work will join the permanent collection displays of the National Gallery to be appreciated by audiences for generations to come.

The blue roof or Farm at Le Pouldu captures an approach to colour and freedom of expression that characterises Gauguin’s subsequent work, hinting to the art yet to come. The picturesque scene of a country farmyard has simplified structure and form, the composition divided into planes, with colour used for definition. Gauguin’s bold use of orange, pinks and blues were highly modern for a work produced in the late 1800s, foreshadowing the developments of 20th century art.

The painting is among a small number of works painted by Gauguin at Le Pouldu on the Breton coast. At the centre of the composition, a woman is shown drawing water from a well, framed and almost subsumed by the rustic farm buildings. Gauguin varied his brushstrokes to capture a sense of the rough surfaces of the stone buildings, thatched roofs and the surrounding vegetation. The composition centres on the figure of the woman, dressed in dark blue with a white cap, and the well. A distinctive blue roof is characteristic of the rural architecture in Le Pouldu, and two dogs in the foreground provide further interest.

From July 1886 until his departure for Tahiti in April 1891, Gauguin travelled regularly between Paris, towns in Brittany and to the South of France, searching for a way to consolidate his style, as well places to live cheaply. He absorbed the region’s peasant traditions, music and especially woodcarving, and described scrutinising ‘the horizons, seeking that harmony of human life with animal and vegetable life through compositions in which I allowed the great voice of the earth to play an important part.’[i] The images of peasant life, the landscape and harvest scenes Gauguin painted in 1889 and during 1890 are some of the most radically simplified of his career.

The National Gallery holds seven prints by Gauguin in the collection, with the first gifted to the National Gallery by renowned Australian artist Sir Russell Drysdale in 1974. The acquisition of The blue roof or Farm at Le Pouldu has been brought to fruition with the extraordinary support of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation. It will be on show in the permanent collection galleries in late 2024.

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