Pescadoras tahitianas

Gauguin landed at Papeete in June 1891 expecting something older than what he found, a French colonial port with officials, a hospital and imported furniture. Three days after he arrived, Pomare the Fifth, the last king of Tahiti, died, and Gauguin stood in the crowd at the funeral. He began painting almost at once, and this comes from those first months, three women by the water held together in a warm reddish light. He worked on coarse sacking rather than proper artist's canvas, which was scarce and expensive on the island, and the weave still shows through the paint. Within a few months he left the town for Mataiea, further down the coast, and rented a hut there.