Tahitians Fishing

Paul Gauguin · 1891/93

Medium

Brush and black ink, over brush and brown ink (originally purple), with watercolor and gouache on parchment, laid down on brown wove paper

Original size

24.9 × 31.6 cm (9 13/16 × 12 1/2 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Post-Impressionism

Tahitians Fishing captures a quiet, elemental moment — figures at the water's edge rendered with the directness and warmth that defined Gauguin's Tahitian period. Gauguin arrived in Tahiti in 1891, driven by a desire to escape the conventions of European art and find what he called a more primal truth. This work, executed in ink, watercolor, and gouache on parchment, shows the intimate, sketch-like quality of his observational drawings — less polished than his large canvases but arguably more honest. The fluid brushwork and layered tones reflect his instinct to record life as he encountered it, before composition and symbolism overtook the image. Gauguin documented his first years in Tahiti in a written and illustrated journal, *Noa Noa*, which drew on many of the scenes and figures he sketched during this period — including everyday activities like fishing that he witnessed along the coast. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates the warmth and atmosphere of the original onto canvas, preserving the gentle tonal contrasts and the feeling of stillness that Gauguin caught in those early Tahitian years. Each piece is painted by hand, making it a singular work rather than a print.