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Paul Gauguin, ‘The Call,’ (1902) Via Cleveland Museum of Art

Currently showing at the Cleveland Museum of Art is a landmark exhibition of work by leading Post-Impressionist artist Paul Gauguin and his contemporaries.  Encompassing 75 paintings, works on paper, wood carvings and ceramics by the artist, along with several works by his colleagues, the show focuses on illuminating how the artist developed his signature style by re-creating, on a smaller scale, the radical, independent art show that Gauguin and his artistic colleagues organized during the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris.  While Gauguin was excluded from the extravagant exhibition of conservative, academic paintings at the Grand Palais, he found a way to present his more avant-garde works and those of his colleagues at Monsieur Volpini’s Cafe des Arts, located on the grounds of the Exposition. The event, which was entitled “L’exposition de Peintures du Groupe Impressionniste et Synthetiste” is  now recognized as being the first Symbolist exhibition in Paris. The Cleveland Museum’s “Paul Gauguin: Paris 1889” re-creates the avant-garde event, bringing viewers into late 19th century Paris, into a replicated cafe–complete with wallpaper and cafe tables–and embedding them within a telling historical context.

More text, images and related links after the jump….

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