The Invocation

1903

Paul Gauguin

Painter, French, 1848 - 1903

Five women, all with brown skin, sit and stand in a landscape painted with tones of emerald green, mauve pink, lilac and plum purple, and cobalt blue in this horizontal composition. To the right of center, a nude woman stands on a patch of violet-colored ground with both arms overhead, as she looks up. To our left, two women wearing only pale blue cloths around their waists sit side-by-side on a patch of amethyst-purple ground. Both sit with their bodies angled to our right, and they look toward the ground with their arms across their chests. To our right of the standing woman, the final pair of women stand or walk toward the right edge of the painting. The woman to our left in that pair wears a dusky rose-pink dress and a bright, coral-pink head covering. She holds one arm across her chest, elbow bent. Next to her, the fifth woman is bare-chested with a white cloth tied around her waist, covering her legs. She looks to our right and holds up her arm, which extends off the right edge of the composition. The purple patches on the ground are surrounded by other areas of raspberry pink and mauve. A band of trees and vegetation stretches across the background, leading back to cobalt-blue mountains along the horizon. Mountains to each side of the composition brush the top edge, and the shallow U of sky between them is ivory white. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower right corner, “Paul Gauguin 1903.”

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Baron Hans Eberhard von Bodenhausen [1868-1918], Munich. Acquired 26 October 1908 by (Bernheim, Paris); sold 7 November 1908 to Elsa Tischner-von Durant, Freising.[1] (Galerie Druet, Paris), c. 1924.[2] (Galerie Thannhauser, Lucerne); acquired by Ralph Harman Booth [d. 1931] and Mary Batterman Booth [d. 1951], Detroit, by 1927;[3] by inheritance to John and Louise Booth, Grosse Pointe, Michigan; gift (partial and promised) 1976 to NGA; gift completed 1981.
[1] The early provenance is according to Georges Wildenstein, Gauguin, Paris, 1964: no. 635. Tischner-von Durant lent the work in 1912 to the Internationale Kunstausstellung in Cologne, copy of catalogue page in NGA curatorial records.
[2] Published in 1924, courtesy of Galerie E. Druet, Paris.
[3] The painting was lent by the Booths to a 1927 exhibition in Detroit.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1912

  • Internationale Kunstausstellung des Sonderbundes Westdeutscher Kunstfruende und Künstler zu Cöln, Städtische Ausstellungshalle, Cologne, 1912, no. 171.

1927

  • Loan Exhibition of Old and Modern Masters, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1927, no. 78, as Natives of Tahiti.

1931

  • Exhibition of Modern French Painting, Detroit Institute of Arts, 1931, no. 41, as Haiti: Women in Landscape.

1985

  • Le chemin de Gauguin, genèse et rayonnement, Musée Départemental du Prieuré, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, 1985-1986, no. 370, repro.

2003

  • Gauguin-Tahiti, L'atelier des tropiques, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 2003-2004, no. 195, repro. (shown only in Boston).

2010

  • Gauguin: Maker of Myth, Tate, London; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2010-2011, unnumbered in catalogue (shown only in London).

2012

  • 1912, Mission Modernedie: die Jahrhundertschau des Sonderbundes, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, 2012.

2013

  • Gauguin: Voyage into Myth and After, Seoul Museum of Art, 2013, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

2014

  • Horizont Jawlensky: Alexej von Jawlensky im Spiegel seiner künstlerischen Begegnungen 1900-1914 [The Jawlensky Horizon: Alexej von Jawlensky in the Reflection of his Encounters from 1900-1914], Museum Wiesbaden, 2014, no. 117, repros.

2015

  • Loan to display with permanent collection, Indiana University Art Museum, Bloomington, 2015-2016.

2017

  • Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist, The Art Institute of Chicago; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 2017-2018, no. 238 (English catalogue), no. 217 (French catalogue), repros.

Bibliography

1938

  • Scheyer, Ernst. The Ralph Harman Booth Collection, Grosse Point - Detroit, Michigan, Detroit, 1938:unpaginated.

1945

  • Cheney, Sheldon. A Primer of Modern Art. Rev. ed. New York, 1945: 55, repro.

1956

  • Wildenstein, G. "L'Idéologie et l'Esthétique dans deux tableaus-clés de Gauguin." Gazette des Beaux-Arts VI période, no. 47 (January - April 1956):150, repro.

1964

  • Wildenstein, Georges. Gauguin. 2 vols. Paris, 1964: no. 635.

1972

  • Sugana, Gabriele Mandel. Tout l'ouevre peint de Gauguin. Milan, 1972: no. 455, repro.

1977

  • "Acquisitions of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Art by Museums," The Burlington Magazine 119, no. 896, supplement (November 1977): 802, repro.

  • Richard, Paul. "A Gift to the Gallery: 'The Invocation,' a not so superior Gauguin." The Washington Post (7 March 1977): B11.

1981

  • Sugana, Gabriele Mandel. Tout l'oeuvre peint de Gauguin. Paris, 1981: no. 456, repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 170, repro.

2004

  • Shackelford, George T.M., and Claire Frèches-Thory. Gauguin: Tahiti. Exh. cat. Galerie nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Boston, 2004: 257-258.

2016

  • Boyle Turner, Caroline. Gauguin & the Marquesas. Paradise Found?. Brittany, 2016: 209, fig. 9.9.

Inscriptions

lower right: Paul Gauguin / 1903

Wikidata ID

Q20190864

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