But behind this myth lies an artistic vision unparalleled in late 19th-century art. Over the course of his troubled career, Gauguin transformed Impressionism’s documentary methods with non-representational ideas of myth, symbolism and abstraction. It was a synthesis of ideas that changed painting for ever, and paved the way for the birth of modern art.
Born in Paris in 1848, the son of a radical journalist, Gauguin spent his early childhood in Peru before he and his mother returned to France. At the age of 17, he joined the French merchant navy and spent the next six years at sea. By the early 1870s, he was working as a stockbroker in Paris and investing in Impressionist works.
Encouraged by Camille Pissarro, Gauguin began to paint in the mid-1870s, and was exhibited at the Impressionist exhibition of 1880. After the crash of the French stock market in 1882, he set out to make a living exclusively through painting. It was a choice that would end in penury, and a complete separation from his wife and family.
As the 1880s progressed, Gauguin lived an increasingly peripatetic existence, visiting Brittany, Panama and Martinique. In 1888, the year in which he produced his symbolist masterpiece, Vision after the Sermon: Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (1888), he spent a famously tumultuous few months with Van Gogh at Arles in the South of France.
By 1895, Gauguin had settled permanently in Tahiti. Syphilitic and penniless, and having heard of the death of his daughter, Aline, he painted his Primitivist masterpiece, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897) before attempting suicide. In 1901, he fled farther from the art world to the island of Hiva Oa in the Marquesas.
It was only in 1906, when a major retrospective of his work was held in Paris — three years after his death — that Gauguin’s reputation was firmly established.
Works by Gauguin regularly achieve record-breaking sums at auction. In 2022, his monumental and mysterious painting, Maternité II (1899), set a world auction record for the artist when it sold at Christie’s New York for $105.7 million.
AFTER PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903)
L’après-midi d’un faune
PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903)
Maternité II
保罗·高更 (1848-1903)
《海浪》
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Thérèse
保罗·高更 (1848-1903)
《花瓶里的花》
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Jeune homme à la fleur
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Nature morte aux fruits et piments
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Le vallon
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Te fare Hymenee (La maison des chants)
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Paysage aux troncs bleus
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Bretonne et oie au bord de l'eau
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Dahlias et mandoline
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Le rêve, Moe Moea
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Les dindons, Pont-Aven
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Nature morte aux tomates
PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903)
La Montagne Sainte-Marguerite vue des environs du presbyt è re
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
La maison blanche
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Petites Bretonnes devant la mer (II)
PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903)
Fleurs et livres
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
La neige à Copenhague
Paul Gauguin (1843-1903)
Chaumières au flanc de la Montagne Sainte-Marguerite
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Clovis
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Les Pêcheuses de goémon
PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903)
Etude de femmes martiniquaises
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Les Pêcheuses de goëmon
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Reine-marguerites, chapeau et livre
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Petit baigneur Breton
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Etable près de Dieppe II
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Ta-Matete
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Rouen, L'Eglise Saint-Ouen
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Jeune Bretonne au bord de la mer
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Nature morte aux trois fruits
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
L'ibis bleu
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Scène bretonne
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Bretonne et chef modelé de jeune Breton
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Enfant au bavoir
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Figure tahitienne (recto); Etudes de félin et d'enfant (verso)
PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903)
Idole Tahitienne
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Deux vaches au pré
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
La Boudeuse
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Arearea no varua ino (Words of the Devil)
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Ja Orana Ritou
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Vase avec une baigneuse
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Le chapeau rouge
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Petit berger Breton
PAUL GAUGUIN (1848-1903)
Un coin du mur (effet de nuit)
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
La ferme de la Groue à Osny
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Femme nue
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)
Trois têtes Tahitiennes