Opened in 2003 to mark the centenary of Gauguin's death, this small cultural centre in Atuona contains reproductions of the painter's Marquesan works alongside personal effects and documents from his last years. Gauguin's originals now hang in museums around the world — few were sold during his lifetime — but the reproductions are well presented and the biographical context is genuinely illuminating.
The centre also includes a replica of the Maison du Jouir (House of Pleasure), the wooden house Gauguin built and decorated with his own carvings and painted signs. The original scandalised the island's French colonial administrators and the Catholic missionaries, who were already engaged in a running feud with the painter. The reconstructed version gives a sense of how deliberately provocative he intended the house to be.