Gauguin lived on the Polynesian island of Tahiti, then a French colony, between 1891-1893 and again in 1895-1901. Working in his radical new style, he viewed the local people and their culture through a decidedly western, male lens. When his paintings were exhibited in Britain, artist John Singer Sargent questioned whether they could be considered art, such was the degree of simplification. Others, however, believed that the bold colours and flattened forms lent greater authenticity to his vision of Tahiti.