Racontars de Rapin

Racontars de Rapin (or Tales of an Apprentice Painter), was completed in September 1902 in Atuona, Gauguin’s home on the Marquesan island of Hiva Oa, French Polynesia, just a few months before he wrote Avant et après (MS.2020.XX.1). As he did later with Avant et après, Gauguin sent the manuscript to the Belgian Symbolist poet and critic André Fontainas, entrusting him with the task of publishing it in the prestigious literary magazine Mercure de France. It was rejected by the editors and did not appear in printed form until 1951. By the late 1890s, writing had become a key part of Gauguin’s creative practice. It was in his texts, not only in his artworks, that the artist began to forge his own myth. Through words, as well as images, the artist sought to challenge ideas, as well as cultural and social norms. Racontars de Rapin is Gauguin’s manifesto for modern art and artistic freedom from the limitations imposed by art criticism. In it, the artist expresses his views in elaborate ways, at times bluntly criticising preconceived ideas, at times using irony — as he does in the title. Rather than an ‘apprentice painter’, his fame was, by then, well established. Composed of 28 neatly written pages, made of double sheets, the manuscript addresses artists and art movements, mainly Gauguin’s contemporaries, but also those who came before him. Through his comments on art and artists, both those he admires and those he criticises, Gauguin squarely targets the artistic establishment of his day, and advocates looking at art afresh ('What's important is what's out there today and what's going to lead the way in twentieth-century art'), freed from the boundaries imposed by critics and movements ('I’m going to try to talk about painting, not as one of the Literati, but as a painter.'). Racontars de Rapin gives a first-hand account of a key turning point in art, looking back at Impressionism and forward to the developments to come. The manuscript most recently belonged to Sam Josefowitz (1921-2015), who in his early collecting life focused on the work of Gauguin and the Pont Aven school of artists who gathered in remote areas of Brittany, France, in the latter part of the 19th century.

sent by Gauguin to André Fontainas; private collection, California; Christie's New York, 14 December 1984, lot 145; where acquired by Sam Josefowitz, Pully (1921-2015); thence by descent; Christie’s Paris, 21 October 2023, lot 411; where acquired by the Samuel Courtauld Trust for The Courtauld Gallery

Goddard, Linda, Savage tales: the writings of Paul Gauguin, New Haven and London, 2019
pp. 15, 22, 24, 37, 39, 59, 60-61, 104, 124, 163

Gauguin, Paul, Racontars de Rapin, Bertrand Leclair (ed.), Paris, 2003

Gauguin, Paul, Racontars de Rapin, facsimile, Tahiti, 1994 ...More