Caricature of Paul Gauguin (1889): Art, History and Details

Caricature of Paul Gauguin (1889) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Émile Bernard (French, 1868–1941).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Émile Bernard worked closely with Paul Gauguin in the village of Pont-Aven during the late 1880s, adopting a new style that emphasized imagination rather than observed reality. This caricatural portrait dates to their most intense period of collaboration, and shows Gauguin as the leader of a new school of painting, seated regally and holding a walking stick that resembles a scepter.

Object facts

• Title: Caricature of Paul Gauguin
• Date: 1889
• Creator attribution: Émile Bernard (French, 1868–1941)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: watercolor and black ink on paper
• Dimensions: Sheet: 19.9 x 15.5 cm (7 13/16 x 6 1/8 in.)
• Collection: DR - French
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2018.75

Collection credit

Bequest of William Kelly Simpson in memory of his wife Marilyn M. Simpson and her grandfather, John D. Rockefeller Jr.

Further reading listed by the museum

• Lemonedes, Heather, Belinda Thomson, Agnieszka Juszczak. Paul Gauguin: the Breakthrough into Modernity. Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz, 2009.
• Jaulme, André and Henri Moncel. Cinquantenaire du symbolisme, exposition de manuscrits autographes, estampes, peintures, sculptures, éditions rares, portraits, objets d’art. Paris: Bibliothèque nationale de France, 1936
• Sotheby's, London. Impressionist and Modern Paintings, Drawings, Watercolours and Sculpture. April 8, 1976. Lot 279.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.