The Red Cow

Paul Gauguin

Oil on canvas

Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Painted in 1889 during Gauguin's stay in Le Pouldu near Pont-Aven in Brittany, The Red Cow depicts a rural scene in which a boldly colored red cow dominates the foreground, partially cropped by the picture frame, while a Breton peasant woman carrying a jug exits the composition on the left and figures labor in the background fields. The composition exemplifies Gauguin's Synthetist approach—bold, non-naturalistic color, simplified forms, and flattened pictorial space—with the vivid red of the cow set against vibrant greens and blues and echoed in the flowers and the woman's dress through carefully deployed complementary colors. Gauguin, a French Post-Impressionist painter and central figure of the Pont-Aven School, used Brittany's rural peasant life as subject matter that expressed a broader search for authenticity and escape from modern urban society. The painting is held in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), acquired through the Mr. and Mrs. George Gard De Sylva Collection.