Complete series in excellent condition of the second edition of the Noa Noa suite, as posthumously edited by Paul Gauguin's son in 1921 in Copenhagen.
Upon his return from his first stay in Tahiti (1891–1893), Gauguin organised an exhibition at the Durand-Ruel gallery, where forty-one paintings were displayed; of these, only three were sold.
Photographs taken in Paul Gauguin's studio in 1894 show the works returned from the exhibition hanging on the walls, contributing to the amplification of that exotic aura remembered by the patrons of the apartment at 6 rue Vercingétorix. In this environment, surrounded by his works, between December 1893 and March 1894, Paul Gauguin produced ten woodcuts, all made on woodblocks of the same size (approx. 205×355 mm).
With an experimental spirit, the artist tackled graphic techniques for the first time, using a varied arsenal of tools, not limited to those specific to the craft. The direct consequence of this modus operandi was the difficulty in reproducing a uniform number of copies in print, which is why he enlisted the help of printer Louis Roy (1862–1907) in an attempt to achieve a consistent print run. The result was a colour edition (unlike subsequent editions) of about thirty prints per subject. The complex work was aimed at creating a portfolio to accompany the text “Noa Noa”, on which he was working together with his friend, the symbolist writer Charles Morice (1860–1919). The publication as it had been imagined never saw the light of day, so the story of text and images proceeded along two parallel tracks.
The prints, produced in collaboration with Louis Roy, were presented to the public for the first time in an exhibition held in Gauguin's studio in December 1894, and critics reacted with amazement to the artist's graphic work. Julien Leclercq highlighted the close connection between the pictorial and sculptural repertoire and the engravings, placing the latter halfway between the two artistic expressions cultivated during Gauguin's first stay in Tahiti.
His woodcuts took on the true role of synthesis that he aspired to, both technically and iconographically, blending together multiple motifs developed during his years in French Polynesia. Although their initial circulation was limited, the impact of the Noa Noa suite of prints on his contemporaries was very strong: Edgard Degas purchased a complete set directly from Gauguin, while it is very likely that Edvard Munch became aware of the work during his stay in Paris in 1895, as did Ernst Ludwig Kirchner a decade later.
In 1921, his son Pola, having acquired eight of the ten original woodcuts from the set, decided to publish a new edition with the help of Danish printer Christian Cato from Copenhagen. In this case, he opted for black and white printing. He added two more woodcuts to the eight from the original series, which had been created by his father during his second stay in Tahiti.