Most fun for the adults: Understanding that Gauguin produced other mediums of art than just paintings.

Most fun for the kids: Learning about the concept of woodcuts.

Best ages for this attraction: 12+

Price per tickets: Included in the admission price of the museum, $10.

Intimate Encounters: Paul Gauguin and the Sough Pacific is at the Art Institute of Chicago from September 6, 2003 through January 11, 2004. I was expecting this exhibit to be filled with Gauguin's paintings and was a bit disappointed to find that it was not. Intimate Encounters is comprised of about 60 drawings and prints by the great Post-Impressionist artist. This remarkable body of work reveals the artist's search to put a face on the South Pacific culture he encountered during his last years. His subjects include from scenes of ordinary life, such as Tahitian women, and scenes on the beach.

On Apr. 1, 1891, Gauguin left France to "seek exile and renewal" in Tahiti. He soon discovered that the island had become very French and was not the unspoiled paradise that he had expected. He blamed Christian missionaries and the colonial administration for destroying native culture, but stayed for two years.

"Intimate Encounters" exhibits sketchbook pages from this time. Gauguin drew figures and animals. He colored in some scenes. Using photographs and reproductions, the exhibition demonstrates how Gauguin later incorporated some of these materials into his paintings and prints. The watercolor monotype Aha Oe Feii? What! Are You Jealous?, for example, contains imagery that the artist transferred from his sketchbooks. Gauguin's monotype technique involved "offsetting watercolor or gouache designs on paper. Placing a piece of dampened paper over the original design, the artist exerted pressure with an implement such as the back of a spoon. Since the moisture in the paper partially dissolved the water-based medium, the original design would thus be transferred in reverse onto the paper."

Gauguin returned to France with many paintings and an idea for a book (eventually published as Noa-Noa) that would describe his artistic rejuvenation through contact with the "primitive" in Tahiti. He made a suite of ten woodcuts, which he hoped to publish as an album. Gauguin exhibited his Tahitian paintings in fall of 1893, but the show failed.

Gauguin returned to Tahiti in July of 1895. Three years later, he began to make woodcuts. There are six of these woodcuts in "Intimate Encounters." At this time, he also created a new medium that was based on the carbon-paper principle. As the curators explain, he applied a coat of ink to one sheet of paper, placed a second over it and drew on the top sheet with pencil or crayon.

In addition to woodcuts and monotypes, Gauguin was creative in other ways as well and drawings, watercolors, and lithographs are also on display.

No photographs of this special exhibit are permitted. Unfortunately, there are not post cards or items from this exhibit for sale in the gift shop either.