Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin (b. 1848–d. 1903) is perhaps equally well known for his life story as for his art. Born in Paris, he spent most of the first six years of his life in Peru until his family returned to their native France. As a young man, Gauguin sailed internationally in the Merchant Marines before becoming an assistant to a stockbroker in Paris. In the 1870s, his interest in art collecting led to meeting several prominent avant-garde artists, including the Impressionist Camille Pissarro. Soon Gauguin was not only buying art, but he was also practicing painting and sculpture in his spare time. By the early 1880s, he was pursuing a fulltime career as an artist. Gauguin worked in a broad range of media, such as painting, wood carving, ceramics, drawing, and printmaking, in addition to his written manuscripts. He was one of the most radically experimental artists of his time, and his oeuvre reflects the breadth of his material interests and international inspirations. Known for his extensive travels, he lived and worked not only in Paris but also the French regions of Brittany and Provence as well as Denmark, Martinique, Tahiti, and the Marquesas Islands. In 1891, Gauguin left Paris for Tahiti, in search of new subject matter for his art and to cement his reputation as a primitivist. After a brief return to France, where his Polynesian-inspired paintings, sculptures, and prints shocked and confounded audiences, he traveled back to Tahiti. He remained there for six years before moving to the Marquesas Islands, where he lived the last two years of his life. Gauguin is best known for his paintings of Polynesian subjects, particularly female figures. Found in museums around the world, his canvases are often characterized by bright colors, flat application of paint, and a style that emphasized subjective feeling and fantastical imagery over naturalistic representation. Although he began his career with the Impressionists, he is also associated with styles and art movements of Cloisonnism, Symbolism, and Primitivism. Posthumously, he has also been categorized as a Post-Impressionist along with Vincent van Gogh, with whom he had a productive yet combative collaboration. The conflation between Gauguin’s life and art can be traced back to the artist himself. He was a savvy promoter of his own work and created a self-mythology in which he embraced a dual persona as both cerebral avant-gardist and uncivilized savage. During his lifetime, he recognized the value of controversy and defiant aesthetic and political stances in his efforts to promote his career. Gauguin remains a controversial figure, however, largely due to his sexual relationships with girls and young women; his participation in French imperialist and colonialist endeavors overseas; and his utilization of motifs, myths, and figures from other, often marginalized, cultures. With the rise of gender, race, and postcolonial theory in recent decades, scholars around the world continue to grapple with the artist, his work, and his lasting cultural impact.