The Courtauld: Gaugin - Artist and Rebel
The Courtauld Institute of Art is a research-led, independent College of the University of London, with one of the world’s most prestigious programmes of art history, curating, and conservation. It is also a public gallery home to one of the greatest art collections in the UK, located in the magnificent historical setting of Somerset House.
Learning Offer
Gaugin - Artist and Rebel
Why were the artworks created by artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) so radical during his lifetime and important for the art that came next?
How do Gauguin’s artworks help contemporary artists and art historians generate conversations around difficult histories concerning colonialism, race and gender, and allow for the production of new meanings?
Join art historian Fran Herrick and printmaker Helen Higgins to explore Gauguin as artist rebel, focusing on the last decade of his life when he travelled to French Polynesia in the South Pacific to reinvent both his art and arguably his own self-identity.
Explore his paintings, prints, drawings and writings to gain deeper insight into the context and contradictions behind the myth of Gauguin. We will visit the Prints and Drawings Study Room to focus on Avant et après (Before and after), his final manuscript / manifesto made on the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas during the last months of his life.
In the afternoon we will explore Gauguin’s bricolage approach, which consciously combined different narratives and perspectives through a mixture of text, his own artworks, and repurposed images. This will provide inspiration for a practical printmaking session, where you can get involved in creating your own experimental prints.
Dates: Thursday 20th February 2025, 10:00am – 3:00pm
Art Forms: KS5+ Art
Location: The Courtauld Institute of Art, Somerset House, Strand, London. WC2R 0RN
Cost: Free
Contact
Email: education@courtauld.ac.uk
