Paul GAUGUIN (1848–1903) ✿

French painter, sculptor and graphic artist. With Van Gogh and Bernard, Paul Gauguin was the creator of a new conception of painting, and his work was a formative influence on 20th-c. art. Like Van Gogh's, his life has become almost a modern legend.

Born in Paris but brought up chiefly in Peru, Paul Gauguin served 1st in the French merchant marine, then became a successful stockbroker in Paris, painting in his spare time. Paul Gauguin exhibited with the Impressionists (1880-6), and the 1st evidence of great original talent was Study of a Nude (1880). In 1883 Paul Gauguin gave up his job to paint full-time with disastrous financial consequences. After an attempt to support his family in Denmark, he left them, dividing his time between painting in Brittany and a number of jobs, such as bill-sticking in Paris and working as a navvy on the Panama Canal. At Pont-Aven, Brittany, in 1888 Paul Gauguin met Bernard with whom he evolved a much simplified, non-naturalistic style of painting with emphasis on decorative line and the use of flat bright colour. Based on many models, the new style was called 'Synthetism'. A masterpiece of the period is Jacob Wrestling with the Angel. Late in 1888 came the disastrous visit to Van Gogh at Arles. In 1889-90 he was painting at Pont-Aven and Le Pouldu, Brittany. In 1891 Paul Gauguin left Europe for Tahiti where he soon painted Two Women on the Beach. The remainder of his life was spent in the South Seas, except for an unsuccessful attempt to sell his paintings in France (1893-5). When Paul Gauguin died in poverty at Atuana, Marquesas Islands, he left behind not only many paintings, but also carvings, woodcuts, watercolours, lithographs and ceramics; while his writings, chiefly journals and letters, are also of interest. The most important of these are Noa-Noa and Avant et aprüs.