Te Faruru (They are Making Love Here)

Te Faruru (They are Making Love Here) is a significant color woodcut created by the French artist Paul Gauguin and his collaborator Louis Roy between 1894 and 1895. This evocative print captures Gauguin’s fascination with Polynesian life and mythology following his first extended stay in Tahiti. As an innovative graphic artist working within the highly experimental period of 1876 to 1900, Gauguin utilized the medium of the color woodcut to achieve raw texture and simplified, potent forms, departing radically from the polished aesthetics of academic European art.

The choice of the woodcut technique facilitated Gauguin's symbolic approach, allowing for bold outlines and heavy planar compositions that emphasize the narrative and emotive quality of the scene. The title itself, Te Faruru, is a Tahitian phrase translating to "They are Making Love Here," reflecting the artist's drive to portray scenes of perceived indigenous intimacy and mythic simplicity, contrasting sharply with bourgeois Parisian sensibilities. The execution of the final prints required the technical expertise often provided by collaborators like Roy, who helped translate Gauguin’s carved blocks into finished graphic works.

This particular piece is a pivotal example of Gauguin's engagement with printmaking, an endeavor that elevated the woodcut from a reproductive medium to a primary vehicle for avant-garde expression. Gauguin’s graphic works, produced in small editions, became highly influential for subsequent generations of modernists, particularly the German Expressionists. This important example of late 19th-century French graphic art resides in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art. While the original print is carefully preserved by the NGA, the study and distribution of Gauguin’s pioneering prints are often facilitated today by the availability of his work in the public domain.