A very rare woodcut printed in reddish brown, the figure remodelled in watercolour and the background reworked in pale blue, yellow and green wash, 1894, a fine atmospheric impression of this unique work, cited in Kornfeld where 18 other impressions of this highly important subject are recorded, only five of which have added hand-colouring, printed by the artist in Pont-Aven/Paris, on wove paper

Ex coll. Francesco (ꩵPaco) Durrio; Galerie Kornfeld, Bern📖, 7-8 June 1978, lot 321, SF 33,000; August Laube, Zurich

In good condition, the sheet printed to the edges, tips of lower corners missing, remains of former support sheet verso, framed.
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"You were wrong that day when you said I was wrong to say I was a savage. It's true enough: I am a savage. And civilized people sense the fact. In my work there is nothing that can surprise or disconcert, except the fact that I am a savage in spite of myself. That's why my work is inimitable".

Paul Gauguinཧ, 1903, in a letter to Charles Morice

 

Oviri means 'wild' or 'savage' in Tahitian. In the primitive mythology of the island, Oviri-moe-aihere  or 'the savage who sleeps in the forest' is the goddess of death and mourning. It is also the title of a melancholy song transcribed by Gauguin in Noa Noa, the artist's illustrated journal from ꦉhis trip to Tahiti.

 

The art historian Christopher Gray saw in Oviri the expression of the 47 year old Gauguin's disillusionment and discouragement: 'all his strength had been poured into his art and he felt that he was no longer making any progresses'. Although the title Oviri is by no means unequivocal, it is clear that the dominant notion is that of the savage and that the word expresses the artist's own attraction to the wild. Here, Gauguin illustrates his desire to reconnect with primitive society, whilst tur🍬ning his back on Western civilisation from which he had voluntarily exiled himsꦿelf.

 

One of the most fundamental principles in Gauguin's creative process was repetition. It is therefore not surprising that the present impression is only one manifestation of this mysterious creature. Aside from the seventeen or so uniquely printed impressions of the woodcut, Gauguin made at least one drawing, two monotypes (Field 30 and 31), one related woodcut (M. K. J. 36), two oils (Where are you going, 1892 Staatsgalerie Stuttgart; and The Idol, 1898 The State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg) and the famous stoneware ceramic, arguably his greatest work in that discipline (1894 Musee d'Orsay, Paris). Gauguin referred to the sculpture as his 'Murderess' and asked in one of his letters dated 1900 to Daniel de Monfreid for the sculpture to be sent to Tahiti and placed over his tomb. Although Monfreid did not send it, one of the bronzes made from the plaster copy was placed on the artist's grave in Antuona in 1973. A number of exhibitions devoted to primitivism have revealed the influence of Gauguin's Oviri sculpture on Picasso by way of his friend Paco Durrio, the notorious previous owner of the present impression. It has even been suggested that one of the figures in Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 🌞(1907 Museum of Modern Art, New York) is based on the stoneware ceramic.

The sculpture as well as various other depictions of Gauguin's Oviri show a woman of monstrous proportions clutching a wolf cub to her 𝓰hip with a beast, possibly a second wolf, cur✨ling in submission at her feet.

Gauguin also titled his plaster self-portrait of 1894-1ꦉ895 "Oviri", making it his allegorical po🀅rtrait. The plaster is now lost but is known to us through a few later bronzes taken from the model.

 

Gauguin is known for developing his own procedures. The interplay between monotype,🐷 hand-colouring and woodcut is therefore typical of Gauguin's pattern of creativity.

 

Richard Brettel states that "the woodblock for Oviri is unique in Gauguin's oeuvre because of the manner in which it was printed. In Pont-Aven during the summer, Gauguin had experimented with his methods of inking the block. The impressions of Oviri take this experimental inking to extremes that defy description. Indeed, most of the surviving impressions seem not to have been printed with printer's ink, but with mixtures of oil paint, ink, and solvents dabbed either on the block or possibly on a secondary support like a rough canvas or cardboard and then transferred on the block. For this reason, the figure of Oviri seems to arise from a primordial ooze of earthy blackness... She is a primal androgyne in a setting that is defined only by the flame like leaves of a palm tree with no trunk, no roots, and ultimately no reality".

 

See Richard Brettel, Françoise Cachin, Claire Frèches-Thory, Charles E. Stuckey, The Art of Paul Gauguin, Exhibition Catalogue, National Gallery of Art, ⛄Washingt♔on, D. C., The Art Institute of Chicago, 1988, pp. 369-376.