Gauguin : metamorphoses / [organized by] Starr Figura ; with essays by Elizabeth C. Childs, Hal Foster, and Erika Mosier ; the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Published in conjunction with the exhibition of the same name, held at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, March 8-June 8, 2014.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 238-243) and index.

Gauguin's metamorphoses : repetition, transformation, and the catalyst of printmaking / Starr Figura -- Gauguin and sculpture : the art of the "ultra-sauvage" / Elizabeth C. Childs -- The primitivist's dilemma / Hal Foster -- Gauguin's technical experiments in woodcut and oil transfer drawing / Erika Mosier -- Map of Gauguin's travels -- Plates -- Starr Figura and Lotte Johnson -- 1886-1889: Paris, Martinique, Brittany, Arles: painting, ceramics, zincography ; The Volpini Suite -- 1889-1895: Paris, Brittany, Tahiti: painting, wood sculpture, ceramics, woodcut, monotype ; Self-portraits ; Noa Noa and the Tahitian idyll ; Tahitian Eve ; Watched by the Spirit of the Dead ; The gods ; Oviri ; Tahitian figures -- 1895-1903: Tahiti, Hiva Oa: painting, wood sculpture, woodcut, transfer drawing, monotype ; Monumental frieze ; Le Sourire and printing experiments ; Nativities ; The evil spirit ; Portraits and double portraits ; In the landscape ; Departure -- Chronology / Lotte Johnson.

"Gauguin: Metamorphoses explores the remarkable relationship between Paul Gauguin's rare and extraordinary prints and transfer drawings, and his better-known paintings and sculptures in wood and ceramic. Created in several discrete bursts of activity from 1889 until his death in 1903, these remarkable works on paper reflect Gauguin's experiments with a range of media, from radically "primitive" woodcuts that extend from the sculptural gouging of his carved wood reliefs, to jewel-like watercolor monotypes and large mysterious transfer drawings. Gauguin's creative process often involved repeating and recombining key motifs from one image to another, allowing them to metamorphose over time and across mediums. Printmaking in particular provided him with many new and fertile possibilities for transposing his imagery. Though Gauguin is best known as a pioneer of modernist painting, this publication reveals a lesser-known but arguably even more innovative aspect of his practice. Richly illustrated with more than 200 works, Gauguin: Metamorphoses explores the artist's radically experimental approach to techniques and demonstrates how his engagement with media other than painting--including sculpture, printmaking and drawing--ignited his creativity."--Back cover.