Collecting Gaugin

The Courtauld Gallery holds one of the most impressive collections of Paul Gaugin’s work in the UK. Collected by the gallery’s namesake Samuel Courtauld over a nine-year period, it includes major paintings such as ‘The Haystacks’ produced in Brittany along with an array of impressions of Tahiti, works on paper and a rare sculpture of the artist’s Danish wife Mette; one of the only two marble sculptures Gaugin ever made. For this significant exhibition, the collection is rejoined with two loans originally owned by Courtauld, that not only demonstrates a collectors eye and passion but also his part in bringing one of the most important Post-impressionist artists to prominence in Britain.