Seated Tahitian Youth

Seated Tahitian Youth is a powerful watercolor and graphite study created by Paul Gauguin French, 1848-1903, likely during his final, prolonged residency in the South Pacific between 1894 and 1903. Although categorized as a painting, the work’s complex medium reveals Gauguin’s experimental approach to drawing and material. The support consists of delicate watercolor and graphite applied directly to irregularly shaped cream wove Japanese paper, which was subsequently laid down onto two further layers of backing paper, one of which is an ivory laid paper incorporating distinct brown and blue fibers. This layered technique underscores Gauguin’s willingness to manipulate unconventional materials to achieve specific textural and tonal effects.

Dating to the final phase of the artist’s Symbolist explorations, this piece embodies Gauguin's persistent fascination with non-Western cultures and his search for an artistic primitivism, which profoundly influenced succeeding generations of artists in France and beyond. The subject, a young Tahitian figure depicted in repose, reflects the pervasive themes of native life that dominated the later output of the French master. Gauguin frequently used local models, blending careful observation with mythological idealization in works like Seated Tahitian Youth.

Although distinct from his large oil canvases, this piece showcases the preparatory studies that inform his major compositions. Given its age and the 1903 death of the artist, this work, along with many other Gauguin images from this period, is now available in the public domain, allowing for the wide creation of prints for scholarly and public access. This important late period study resides in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.