The exhibition Paul Gauguin at Fondation Beyeler in Riehen (Basel, Switzerland) is one of the highlights of the art year 2015. The show brings together about fifty masterpieces by Paul Gauguin from leading international museums and private collections such as the Musée d'Orsay, Paris; the Museum Folkwang, Essen; the Tate in London; the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery in Prague; and the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. The exhibition focuses on Gauguin's world-famous paintings he created in Tahiti, complemented by diverse self-portraits and paintings from the time he spent in Brittany. In his Tahiti paintings, Paul Gauguin celebrates his ideal of an unspoilt exotic world, harmoniously combining nature and culture, mysticism and eroticism, dream and reality.
In addition to paintings, the exhibition includes a selection of Gauguin's enigmatic sculptures that evoke the art of the South Seas that had by then already largely vanished. One of the works on show, the 1892 oil painting, Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?), was recently sold for a new record price for an artwork. Rumor has it it was sold for nearly $300 million to Qatar Museums. Prior to the sale, the Gauguin painting had been on loan to the Kunstmuseum in Basel. The exhibition at Fondation Beyeler runs until June 28, 2015.
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