Decades ago the J. Paul Getty Museum, with its bulging endowment, was expected to bulldoze its way into the art market and buy every good thing that came up for sale. If only. All these years later the Getty’s paintings collection is still a patchwork affair. But on Tuesday the museum announced that it’s purchased what looks like a really interesting Gauguin from the most important period of his career. Arii Matamoe is an 1892 canvas from Gauguin’s first sojourn in the islands. From the image in the New York Times, it appears to be a picture that combines what was then recent Tahitian history with maybe a whiff of the Symbolist rupture with reality and even a prevision of Surrealism.
This is a canvas I really want to see.