THE PAINTING “ARII MATAMOE” IS NOW PART OF THE MUSEUM COLLECTION

The Los Angeles museum, Paul Getty, announced a few days ago that it had acquired the painting “Arii Matamoe” executed by Paul Gauguin in 1982. The painting has been in custody of a Swiss family for decades and was publicly exhibited only once in 1946. The museum will not identify the seller or how much was paid for possession of the work. According to Getty officials, the painting is in excellent condition and would probably already go on display next month after cleaning and modest restoration. Another painting by Gauguin from the same period, “Te Poipoi“, was purchased by a Hong Kong collector in November at auction at Sotheby’s for 39.2 million dollars.

“Arii Matamoe” was created in 1982 during Gauguin’s first extended stay in Tahiti. The work is extremely different from previous works by the author. The first difference is that for the first time, Gauguin depicts an interior but the painting is particularly characterised by a certain morbidity absent from his usual scenes. The original title was translated by Gauguin himself as “The Royal End”.

The painting depicts the severed head of a Polynesian man resting on a white cushion set on a low table or serving platter, in a richly designed interior. The decapitated head dominates the scene and imposes a disturbing image to the viewer. Behind is a crouching nude female figure that seems to be in mourning. She is contorted with skull motifs which form a geometric design. Outside the house, other figures can be seen separated by a bamboo screen that appears to also divide the dead from the living.

While the painting may have been loosely inspired by the death of the former Tahitian king Pomare V, it does not depict an actual person or even common Tahitian death rites. The painting however leads us to think that it is an evocation of Polynesian funeral rites. “Arii” means noble and “Matamoe” could be translated as “sleeping eyes”, a euphemism for “death”. We therefore find ourselves facing the death of a noble, of a royal personage. The death of the king is also a metaphor for the death of the Tahitian culture as a consequence of the European civilisation and colonisation.

Some critics argue that most likely, Gauguin wanted to shock the French public that admired the painting when it was exhibited by the Durand-Ruel gallery in 1893. The only recent public viewing of the painting was in 1998 as part of a Gauguin exhibition at the Foundation Pierre Gianadda in Martigny, Switzerland. There had been only three or four owners in its history. It was moved from Paris to Geneva in 1941, and was sold during World War II and subsequently to a private collector there, where it has remained till today.

Michael Brand, the Getty’s director, said the acquisition was one of the key moments in the history of their collection. The museum owns three other works by Gauguin: “Eve (The Nightmare),”; “Portrait of a Tahitian Girl,”; and a wood sculpture, “Head With Horns. The work will further enrichen the present collection of impressionists and post-impressionists of the museum which holds works by Van Gogh, Cézanne, Monet, Degas, and Renoir.