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Paul Gauguin (France) 1843- |  ARTIST PROFILE
Paul Gauguin was born in Paris. Part of his childhood was spent in Peru, whence his mother's family came, and from 1865 to 1871 he was at sea. He became a stockbroker in 1871, and a Sunday-painter who collected the works of the Impressionists and joined in their exhibitions (1881-1886). He gave up
his job in 1883, and after many vicissitudes separated from his family and went to live in Brittany at Pont-Aven, Brittany and Le Pouldu, where he worked from 1886 to 1890, except for visits to Paris, a trip to Panama and Martinique in 1887 and a disastrous stay of two months with van Gogh in Arles
in 1888. In 1891, he went to Tahiti, returned to Paris in 1893 for lack of money, but went back to the South Sea Islands in 1895. His health was failing and he had been seriously hurt in a brawl with sailors in Brittany in 1894. His remaining years were spent in poverty, illness, and continual strife
with the colonial authorities through his championing'of native causes. He died at Atuana in the Marquesas.
His early works may be ranged with those of the Impressionists particularly with Pissarro and Cezanne, but after 1886 when his works hung in the eighth and last Impressionists Exhibition
with those of Seurat he endeavoured to introduce more colour and this tendency became more marked after his voyage to Martinique. In 1888, at Pont-Aven he met Emile Bernard, whose knowledge of medieval art joined with Gauguin's own interest in primitive sculpture, Japanese, Romanesque, and Far and
Near Eastern art, to encourage him to abandon Impressionism and all attempts at the representation of nature in favour of synthetism. His rejection of Western civilization led to his departure for Tahiti, and to his efforts to express, through an art free from the conventions of the naturalistic tradition,
the simplicity of life among primitive and unspoiled peoples. His influence has been enormous, since he is one of the main sources from which non-naturalistic 20th-century art has emanated.
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RELATED EXHIBITIONS
 Amsterdam : Van Gogh and Gauguin
Chicago : Van Gogh and Gauguin, The Studio of the South
Dayton : The Triumph of French Painting. Masterpieces from Ingres to Matisse
Hartford : Gauguin and de Haan Exhibition
New York : The Annenberg Collection of Impressionist and Postimpressionist Masterpieces
Poughkeepsie, NY : From Manet to Picasso, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Prints and Drawings
Saint Louis : Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard
Washington : Impressionist Still Life
Washington : The Unfinished Print, featuring works by Degas, Rembrandt, Munch, Gauguin and others
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ARTIST WORKS
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WORK DETAILS |
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 | | Title: | Pastime | | Medium: | 1892, dimensions 75?94cm, Oil on canvas | | Exhibited at: | Musee d'Orsay | |
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 | | Title: | The Lost Virginity | | Medium: | 1891, dimensions 90?130cm, Oil on canvas | | Exhibited at: | Chrysler Museum of Art | |
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 | | Title: | The yellow Christ | | Medium: | 1889, | | Exhibited at: | | |
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