Gauguin show breaks record at Tate Modern

A show on the celebrated French artist Gauguin has broken records at Tate Modern.

Thousands of people have pre-ordered tickets to see the exhibition, which will bring a number of paintings to the UK for the first time.

More than 100 works have been borrowed from collections around the world for the first major UK exhibition on Gauguin in 50 years.

So far, Tate Modern has notched up the highest advance ticket sales for eight years, since the blockbuster Picasso Matisse show in 2002.

The exhibition, which opens today, includes a letter sent by Gauguin to his wife that has never been exhibited before as well as a letter to fellow artist Vincent Van Gogh.

It will also reunite Gauguin’s four great religious paintings – The Yellow Christ, Green Christ, Self-portrait As Christ In The Garden Of Olives and Vision Of The Sermon – for the first time.

Some of the works, including Are You Jealous? (1892) and The Ford (The Flight) (1901) have never been seen in Britain before.

Gauguin’s letter to his wife Mette was written while they were separated and the artist was in Tahiti.

Visitors will also see how Gauguin used shock tactics and self-publicity – traits usually associated with today’s artists – to further his career.

Gauguin, a former stockbroker, taught himself to paint while spending 10 years working in finance and buying up other artists’ work.

Tate Modern said it did not keep a record of advance sales statistics for its Matisse Picasso show, but pre-bookings may have outnumbered those for the Gauguin display.

Gauguin: Maker Of Myth runs at Tate Modern until January 16.