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This talk offers the opportunity to discover more about Gauguin’s beautiful jewel-like canvasses and Michael Howard’s quest to authenticate two of Gauguin’s paintings.
A search for Paradise Lost? Was Gauguin nothing but a tourist seeking for a some lost Shangri-la or was he an exile searching for his lost home? He called himself ‘the savage from Peru’ yet he was a master of self-promotion. An artist who was imprisoned by the myths he himself invented. Any of this could have destroyed a lesser artist – but not Gauguin.
He was a true visionary, a troubled creator of beautiful jewel-like canvases that sing to us with a dream-like intensity: each picture offering us an invitation to voyage.
Woven into this talk is Michael Howard’s own story of international intrigue, mystery and skulduggery as he became involved in the quest to authenticate two of Gauguin’s paintings – each worth millions if proven to be so, worth nothing if proven to be forgeries. To add spice to this part of Michael’s talk we are adding four pictures. Jacob wrestling with the Angel (1888) is a copy of the Gauguin original but the other three are a Gauguin self portrait, Paddington Bear (inspired by the Peru connection) and Pablo Picasso (who was greatly influenced by Gauguin’s work), all produced by AI in Gauguin’s style. The master lives on!
ABOUT MICHAEL HOWARD
Michael is a familiar face to The Arts Society. He is President of The Arts Society Bolton and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Although retired, he continues to teach at the Manchester School of Art. He has published widely on European art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries – his books including: L. S. Lowry: A Visionary Artist; The Impressionists by Themselves; The Stations of the Cross / The Captive Figure and the award-winning dramatic interpretation and publication of material originally performed by the Zurich-based Dadaists of 1916, A New Order: An Evening at the Cabaret Voltaire. His book on Gauguin was written in association with the Gauguin Museum, Tahiti, and his book on Monet for the Musée Marmottan, Paris. One of his most recent books concerns his wife’s life and work: The Human Touch: Ghislaine Howard.
Please email the Membership Secretary if you would like to attend at: membersgadev@gmail.com