17:50 · three minutes · then 700 m along avenue du Maine to stop 2
Paul Gauguin, Paris in the Snow, 1894, painted from his window at 6 rue Vercingétorix. Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. Public domain.
Stand near the low numbers of rue Vercingétorix. Nothing from 1894 survives; the painting is the view from a top-floor window on this street.
▶ Listen · The yellow studio · 4 min
Paul Gauguin lived and worked at number 6 from January 1894 to July 1895, between his two stays in Tahiti. He painted the studio walls bright yellow and hung them with his Tahitian canvases, four Van Goghs and a Cézanne. Every Thursday he held an open evening: Degas now and then, Mallarmé, Strindberg, the composers Ravel and Delius, and the dealer Vollard. After a snowfall in late February he painted the courtyard from his window.
Why open a Matisse walk here? Vollard, from those Thursdays, is the dealer who in 1899 sold the penniless Matisse a small Cézanne he could not afford; he kept it thirty-seven years. Paul Signac drew this street in 1885 and in 1904 hosted Matisse at Saint-Tropez. And Matisse hung a Gauguin at home, next to a Rodin bust and a Van Gogh drawing.
Fun fact
Gauguin painted the Paris snow from a room painted yellow and hung with Tahiti. The composer of Boléro came to his parties.
Quiz · Which composer, famous for Boléro, came to Gauguin's Thursdays on this street?
Maurice Ravel.
The story in six panels
1January 1894. Back from Tahiti, a painter rents a top-floor studio on this street.
2He paints the walls bright yellow and hangs them with the South Seas.
3Every Thursday, an open evening: a poet, a playwright, two composers, an art dealer.
4February 1894. Snow. He puts his easel at the window and paints the courtyard.
5July 1895. He leaves for Tahiti for good. The house is gone; the street was rebuilt.
61899. The dealer from those Thursdays sells a young painter a small picture he cannot afford.
Drawn in paper-cut style with Gemini from our script; no real person is depicted.
More to look at
Paul Signac, Rue Vercingétorix, 1885, black crayon. Musée du Louvre. Public domain.
