UNIQUE IN THE WORLD- A HANDWRITTEN LETTER BY PAUL GAUGUIN FROM TAHITI STAINED WITH PAINT FROM HIS STUDIO
This distinctly written and boldly signed letter was written by artist, Paul Gauguin, from his paradise in Tahiti. This letter is all the more distinctive because it was obviously written from his studio where it came into contact with paints in use by Gauguin at the time. This rare and beautiful letter is matted and framed with a picture of one of his most famous paintings depicting a Tahitian scene and incorporating the very same colors in our letter. In the letter, Gauguin sends his correspondent an article of interest.
When the Paris stock exchange crashed in November 1882, Gauguin, a stockbroker, found himself without a living. From the prosperous middle classes he sank “deeper and deeper into the mud” of the proletariat, and was soon only able to offer his wife and five children “dry bread on credit.” So he decided to make a career of his passion for painting, and in spring 1891 fled the old world on his own, for the South Sea island of Tahiti.
It was a flight to an exotic paradise, in Gauguin’s imagination. But in the late nineteenth century, the unspoiled natural primitiveness of Tahiti had survived only in areas that resembled reservations, under the rule of French and British colonialists. Gauguin settled in one of the native villages and painted to ward off the disappointment and resignation. The resulting pictures used glowing colors and resplendent surfaces that were less an account of a given reality than the projected dream of a European weary of civilization.
