This lecture will look at the enduring Western obsession with, and invention of the so called ‘exotic’ or ‘noble savage’ starting with the first discovery of the Island of Tahiti in1767 and charting the impact, through painted images of the island and their people, of the English and European influence in this part of the world through the eyes of not only Captain Cook and those who came before him, but also through the eyes of the artists that accompanied these pioneering voyages and into the 19th and early 20th century with the images of Gauguin