Paul Gauguin

(1848-1903)

Was born in Paris. Gauguin became a stockbroker in 1871, and a Sunday-painter who collected the works of the Impressionists and joined in their exhibitions (1881-6). Gauguin gave up his job in 1883, and after many vicissitudes separated from his family and went to live in Brittany at Pont-Aven 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. Gauguin’s 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. Gauguin died at Atuana in the Marquesas.

Gauguin’s famous oil paintings include:

• Nevermore
• The White Horse
• The Swineherd, Brittany
• Still-Life with Puppies
• The Yellow Christ
• We Greet Thee, Mary (La Orana Maria)
• Still-Life with Flowers
• The Moon and Earth
• Day of the God