JOURNALS BY GAUGUIN

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26617, 31 December 1951, Page 3

JOURNALS BY GAUGUIN

N.Z. ART TREASURE SOLD PAINTERS’ PAPERS BRING £5O "The Press" Special Service AUCKLAND, December 30. New Zealand is losing one of the most interesting art treasures that has ever come its way. It is the complete jgsue—six numbers —of a journal the famous French painter Gauguin put out in Tahiti. Nearly all the articles in the pubiiegtion—“Le Sourire” (The Smile)— were written by Gauguin himself. They caused him much trouble with official Tahiti. He lampooned- several functionaries and officials and attacked a cleric and a lawyer. The papers were owned by Mr J. M A Hott, of Wellington. They were txiught at a sale in Wellington this month for a New Zealander living in London. He is Mj* R. Nan Kikell, a director of the Redfern Art Galleries. London, and formerly of New BrightoGauguin put out 25 copies of each of the six numbers of “Le Sourire.” They date between August, 1898, and February, 1899. Four copies had to be lodged in Government offices. The set now in New Zealand was one of the remaining 21. Each paper has four 15in by lO&in pages, printed in French by hectograph from Gauguin’s own handwriting. They are illustrated with drawings—three of them woodcuts, the rest pen and ink. Gauguin put out another journal—- “ Les Guepes” (The Wasps)—which followed “Le Sourire.” It was bought at the same Wellington sale by the Auckland War Memorial Museum. Mr David Strang, of Auckland, was Mr Nan Kivell’s agent. He said the sale had been held at a very bad time of the year and prices were ridiculously low. “MrNanKivell was so keen to get the Gauguin papers that he put in a bid for £150,” he said. “He got them for £5O. I picked up for 7s a first edition of Bernard Shaw that would sell in London for £7 to £7 10s. “And yet at other sales New Zealand collectors have paid up to £2OC for near worthless stuff. Anything good—this Gauguin material, for instance —always seems to go out of the country.”