This two-volume set launches a glorious project in art history for a central figure of French Post Impressionism: the multi-volume catalog raisonne of the work of Paul Gauguin. But this is no ordinary catalog raisonne, not a book just for scholars, but more of a biographical or narrative catalog raisonne, with extensive sidebars and texts detailing different aspects of the Gauguin's life and work. These first volumes center on a Gauguin less well known to the general public, and featuring the paintings made from 1873 to 1888, works that offer a wide range of styles from youthful experiments to the realized work of a mature and innovative painter. This is Gauguin in France - the period before he sought inspiration in Tahiti. Here is the countryside on the coast of Brittany, on Martinique, and the environs of Paris as only Gauguin saw them. Here are all the still-lifes and portraits, including 9 never before published pieces.

This is deluxe slip-cased set of books is distinguished by its scholarly provenance and by its more accessible progression of material from Gauguin's daily life: sketches, letters, family photographs, extracts from his writings, with individual entries on his models, the locales, and his friends and family. The combination makes for a marriage of true scholarship and a deeper enjoyment of this singular painter.