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Manao Tupapau (The Spirits of the Dead Are Watching)

Maker

(artist)
1848-1903

(wood engraver)
1848-1903

(printer)
1883-1961

(publisher)

(printer)
1883-1961

Title

Manao Tupapau (The Spirits of the Dead Are Watching)

Date of Production

1893-1894

Medium

Wood engraving

Dimensions

Height: 20.4 cm
Width: 35.6 cm

Accession Number

G.1948.SC.182.3

Mode of Acquisition

Samuel Courtauld, bequest, 1948

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords





Related Works

Album of ten woodcuts

Label Text

Various life cycles are depicted in Gauguin’s Noa Noa scenes which he partly derived from Tahitian mythology. Here, sleep, like death, puts the woman in touch with her spirit-ancestors, represented by the sinister black tupapau in the upper right. At daybreak she is born again. Gauguin has exploited the nature of the material, a hard woodblock, to powerful effect. The stark white oval shape and roughly-hewn toolmarks stress the emotional tension of the scene.

Provenance

Pola Gauguin, Copenhagen, 1921; Leicester Galleries, London, by 1924; purchased by Samuel Courtauld, London, July 1924, for £47.5 (portfolio); Courtauld Bequest, 1948

Exhibition History

Darwin in Paradise Camp: Yuki Kihara, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, 15/03/2025-03/08/2025

Courtauld Connects Regional Programme (Braintree Museum) Courtaulds: Origins, Innovations, Family, Braintree Museum, 02/02/2020-10/11/2020

The Courtauld Collection. A Vision for Impressionism, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris, 20/02/2019-17/06/2019 ...More

Collecting Gauguin: Samuel Courtauld in the 20's, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 20/06/2013-08/09/2013

Once Upon a Time - Artists and Storytelling, Embankment Galleries, Somerset House, London, 24/06/2009-26/07/2009

Special Display - Impressionist Prints, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 13/06/2008-13/10/2008

WE the Moderns, Graves Art Gallery & Sheffield & England, 20/01/2007-18/03/2007

WE the Moderns, Kettle's Yard & Cambridge & England, 13/01/2007-04/03/2007

Gauguin's Tahitian Prints: A Selection from the Noa Noa Album, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 01/08/2003-30/09/2003

The Courtauld Collection, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, 26/12/1997-12/05/1998

Drawings and Engravings from the Courtauld Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, December 1959-April 1960 ...Less

Literature

Serres, Karen (ed.), The Courtauld Collection: A Vision for Impressionism, Paul Holberton Publishing 2019
no. 55, pp. 247-252
ill. on p. 251

Inscriptions

Inscription: inscribed : signed : in the block & lower left : : PGo

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