Gauguin: Metamorphoses opens Saturday, March 8 at the Museum of Modern Art. From the press release:

This exhibition focuses on Paul Gauguin’s rare and extraordinary prints and transfer drawings, and their relationship to his better-known paintings and his sculptures in wood and ceramic.

Created in several bursts of activity from 1889 until his death in 1903, these remarkable works on paper reflect Gauguin’s experiments with a range of mediums, from radically “primitive” woodcuts that extend from the sculptural gouging of his carved wood reliefs, to jewel-like watercolor monotypes and large, mysterious transfer drawings.

Gauguin’s creative process often involved repeating and recombining key motifs from one image to another, allowing them to evolve and metamorphose over time and across mediums. Printmaking, which by definition involves transferring and multiplying images, provided him with many new and fertile possibilities for transposing his imagery.

Left: Head with Horns, 1895-1897; wood with traces of paint. Right: Tahitian Woman with Evil Spirit, c. 1900; oil transfer drawing;  both by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903). Above: My iPhone photos from the media preview on Wednesday.

Gauguin embraced the subtly textured surfaces, nuanced colors, and accidental markings that resulted from the unusual processes that he devised, for they projected a darkly mysterious and dreamlike vision of life in the South Pacific, where he spent most of the final 12 years of his life.

Though Gauguin is best known as a pioneer of modernist painting, this exhibition showcases a lesser-known but arguably even more innovative aspect of his practice. Comprising approximately 150 works, including some 120 works on paper and a critical selection of some 30 related paintings and sculptures, it is the first exhibition to take an in-depth look at this overall body of work.

Gauguin: Metamorposes, March 8-June 8, 2014. Information. Member previews run from Saturday, March 1-Friday, March 7. Public programs. Museum of Modern Art, 11 West 53^rd Street, NY, NY.

Ed. note: This exhibition will not travel so this is your only chance to see this innovative and experimental work by a painter you thought you knew.