Public collection via the Cleveland Museum of Art
AT-00009148About the Artwork
Painted on a remote island in Polynesia a year before the artist's death, The Call belongs to a series of late works that explore the mysteries of life and death. Two women stand with bare feet, as if on sacred ground. One woman gestures to someone outside the picture, perhaps responding to a "call" from fate or destiny. Gauguin realized his ambition of painting from memory and the imagination through such mysterious, dreamlike images.
Inscriptions
Signed lower right: P. Gauguin / 1902
Provenance
Ambroise Vollard [1866-1939], Paris, France by 1912-1933: Baron Wolf Kohner [1866-1937], Budapest, Hungary by 1933-1943: (Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY, November 9, 1943, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1943-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history
A Loan Exhibition of Paul Gauguin for the Benefit of the New York Infirmary. Wildenstein & Co. (organizer) (April 3-27, 1946). Art, A Means to World Understanding. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 16-April 10, 1949). The Variety of Artistic Production. Akron Art Museum (January 12-February 26, 1950). Gauguin in Tahiti. Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minneapolis, MN (organizer) (April 1-May 14, 1950). Masterpieces From Museums and Private Collections. Wildenstein & Co. (organizer) (November 7-December 15, 1951). Paul Gauguin, His Place in the Meeting of East and West. Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (March 27-April 25, 1954). An Exhibition of Paintings, Engravings and Sculpture by Gauguin. Gallery of the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (August 21-September 18, 1955); Tate Britain, London (September 29-October 26, 1955). The Turn of the Century-Exhibition of Masterpieces. Denver Art Museum, Denver, CO (organizer) (October 1-November 18, 1956). In Memoriam: Leonard C. Hanna, Jr.. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 4-April 7, 1958). Gauguin: Paintings, Drawings, Prints, Sculpture. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL (organizer) (February 12-March 29, 1959); The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (April 22-May 30, 1959). Creativity in Art and Science, 1860-1960. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (September 16-November 8, 1987). Object Lessons: Cleveland Creates an Art Museum. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 7-September 8, 1991). Paul Gauguin: Paris, 1889. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 4, 2009-January 18, 2010).
Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.
Quick Overview
- Artist
- Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903)
- Date
- 1902
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 160.5 x 119 x 9.5 cm (63 3/16 x 46 7/8 x 3 3/4 in.); Unframed: 131.3 x 89.5 cm (51 11/16 x 35 1/4 in.)
- Type
- Painting
- Classification
- Painting
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Credit line
- Gift of the Hanna Fund
- Accession no.
- 1943.392
More by Paul Gauguin in museum collections
Open-access museum record · AT-00009148
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