Gauguin Unexpected
3 Oct 2024 - 19 Jan 2025

In the autumn and winter of 2024, the Bank Austria Kunstforum Wien will present a comprehensive retrospective of Paul Gauguin's work – the first of its kind in Austria since 1960.

The exhibition explores Gauguin's development from his beginnings as a Post-Impressionist to his role as a pioneer of modern art, encompassing all aspects of his creative output: painting, graphic art, and sculpture. Growing up in Paris in the 1860s as a successful banker, Gauguin only later decided to dedicate his career to the visual arts. His initial joint exhibitions with the Impressionists marked the start of a path filled with challenges and rejections. Gauguin's artistic endeavor to question traditions and established visual habits led to the development of a new visual language. This language paved the way for modern art, including abstraction, Fauvism, and Expressionism. By reducing forms to flat areas, re-evaluating color both formally and in content, and concentrating the visual language on essentials, Gauguin created a concept of art that influenced the definition of art well into the 20th century, inspiring countless artists of his and subsequent generations.

The exhibition features over 80 loans from major international museums and significant private collections.

Photo credits: Kunstforum Wien