A exhibition entirely dedicated to the French artist Paul Gauguin returns to the Capital. From Saturday, September 6 to January 25, 2026, the rooms of the National Historical Museum of the Italian Army welcome the exhibition "Gauguin. The diary of Noa Noa and other adventures", produced by Navigare srl as part of an initiative by the Ministry of Defense - Difesa Servizi S.p.A, curated by Vincenzo Sanfo, and sponsored by the Lazio Region and the Municipality of Rome - Department of Culture.

The exhibition, consisting of 165 works, all coming from private collections in Italy, France, and Belgium, as well as some French and Italian museum collections, presents over 100 woodcuts, drawings, and lithographs by Gauguin, along with two works attributed to him: the oil on canvas "Femme de Tahiti" (1891) and the watercolor "Paysage Tahitien."

At the core of the exhibition are the 23 woodcuts from the Diary of Noa Noa (1893-94), written by the artist during his first stay in French Polynesia and enriched with his illustrations made using the ancient woodcut technique, printed by Daniel de Monfreid. Fascinated by the primordial nature of the places, which to France at the time represented both fascination and disturbance, the outsider Gauguin lived the Polynesian culture with passion, inhabiting it in the last 10 years of his life and expressing numerous suggestions through art. This led to the creation of the 16 color lithographs of the series "Ancien Culte Mahorie" (1892), and the two sculptures dated 1893: "Vase aux dieux tahitiens," on display with the terracotta copy, and the other, "Idole à la coquille," presented in Rome with a bronze specimen and mother-of-pearl shell. Additionally, there is the precious "Tehura Tahitian woman mask," in patinated bronze, from the Musée Despiau-Wlérick in France, and a notebook of 38 drawings, with sketches depicting studies on portraits, human body details, and the animal world.

To accompany visitors through the exotic and vibrant suggestions that struck Gauguin's sensibility, the exhibition also includes a specific section on Polynesia, composed of the photographic exhibition "The Islands of Tahiti, the primordial soul," created by Tahiti Tourisme in collaboration with Leica Camera Italia. The collection aims to showcase the lesser-known beauties of some fascinating archipelagos of French Polynesia through the shots of photographers and videomakers Luigi Chiurchi and Pietro Ienca, authors of the 14 images on display during a journey through the Society Islands and the Marquesas Islands, which were included last year among the UNESCO World Heritage Sites for their natural and cultural value.