Location: Sainsbury Wing

The first ever exhibition devoted to the portraits of Paul Gauguin

Spanning the later years of his life and focusing solely on his portraits, this exhibition follows Gauguin’s move away from Impressionism towards Symbolism.

By adding carefully selected attributes or placing the sitter into a suggestive context Gauguin was able to make portraits that expressed meaning beyond their personalities. A group of self-portraits, for example, reveals how Gauguin created a range of personifications including his self-image as 'Christ in the Garden of Olives', 1889 (Norton Gallery of Art, West Palm Beach).

Featuring about fifty works, the exhibition includes paintings, works on paper, and three-dimensional objects in a variety of media, from public and private collections worldwide.

It also brings together multiple works of the same sitter from different collections scattered across the world, giving us the opportunity to see how Gauguin interpreted a model in different media over time.

Exhibition organised by the National Gallery and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.