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Overwhelmed with commissions in later life, he took off in 1890 for "a year of recreation and idleness" in the South Seas, visited Samoa, Fiji and Tahiti. His quick sketches, executed on the spot, caught the gaiety and innocence of an as yet unspoiled paradise with verve and masterly handling of light and flashing color. He just missed meeting Gauguin in Tahiti. In practice, La Farge was too much the meticulous mandarin (he loathed shaking hands with strangers) to refer to Gauguin other than as the "wild Frenchman." But his artist's eye easily bridged the gulf.
Writing to Henry Adams, he could say of Gauguin's work: "And yet there is the feeling of a man who has found something." The same could be said of La Farge.