Magazine: Summer 2013

Gauguin's wood relief Te Fare Amu (1901—02) contain[s] a surprise [when analyzed with x-radiography]. A serious editorial suppres- sion of Gauguin's original concept has occurred, and it is interesting as a reflection of its time. In his essay "Reminiscences of a Collector" (1959), Henry Pearlman relates his acquisition and subsequent treatment of Te Fare Amu, explaining that he had the labia on the left-most kneeling figure disguised because he was afraid that U.S. Customs would confiscate the relief upon import: On one visit to Paris, I saw a sculptured and painted wood panel by Gauguin in a large well-known gallery on the Left Bank. It was quite sensual, and I figured it would not be easily accepted by the American public. I passed it over, but during the following year I kept thinking of it, and resolved that the next time I got to Paris I would look at it again. Reading through books on Gauguin, I found that the words on the panel, "TE FARE AMU," meant "House of Joy" in the Tahitian language. The right side of the panel depicts a man and a woman together with an animal nearby that represents perfidy. The center, beneath the words, shows a fetus as it grows into a worm and then a tadpole. On the left side of the panel is the image of a prostitute, with her genitals exposed and red buttons running up her spine denoting passion. With close visual examination, or ultraviolet examination, a green- painted fill in the area that Pearlman describes can be identified. Once again, x-radiography revealed what is hidden to the eye. Because of differences in the density in wood due to carving, and the opacity of heavy metal pigments to x-ray, the film showed that the labia are still present; they were carved into the wood and painted in a pigment similar to other red pigments on the relief. The relief carving is so low and flat that this panel can be thought of as a painting on wood rather than a relief sculpture. Gauguin outlined the shapes with a sharp tool that gave clean definition when he worked parallel to the grain but fractured the wood when he carved perpendicular to the grain.