(1848-1903)
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Eugène
Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris on 7 June, 1848, the son of Clovis
Gauguin, a Republican editor, and his wife Aline Marie Chazal. In 1849,
after Louis Napoléon came to power, the family emigrated to Peru.
Clovis Gauguin died on the way. His widow and 2 children (Paul and his
elder sister Mari) stayed in Lima with their rich relatives and did not
return to France until 1855. On coming back they settled with the uncle
Isidore Gauguin in Orléans. In 1865, Paul became a sailor and spent
the next three years voyaging between France and South America, and made
a voyage around the world. In 1868, Paul joined the navy, which he left
after the Franco-Prussian War. Instead, he started to work as a broker’s
agent in Paris. The first known drawings by Gauguin dated 1871, when he
was in his late twenties. In the broker’s agency Gauguin met and befriended
Claude-Emile Schuffenecker (1851-1934), a shy clerk, who shared Gauguin’s
interest in painting, they both started to study painting at the Colarossi
Academy, worked together en plein-air and in the Louvre and met Parisian
artists.
In 1873, Gauguin married a Dane, Mette Sophie Gad (1850-1920), who gave
birth to his 5 children: Emile (1874 - ), Aline (1877-1897), Clovis
(1879-1900), Jean René (1881-1961) and Pola (1883-1961).
In 1874, Gauguin met Pissaro and other Impressionists. He traded at the
stock exchange, which provided a comfortable income and he bought many
of the Impressionists' paintings and had a handsome collection. His début
in the Salon took place in 1876. He also exhibited paintings and sculptures
with Impressionists and the Indépendents in 1879, 1880 and 1882.
The works of the period are close to Impressionism; he was greatly influenced
by Pissaro, who gave his advice
generously, and later by Cezanne.
But gradually Gauguin broke away from Impressionism and adopted a bolder
style - radical simplifications of drawing, brilliant, pure, bright colors,
an ornamental character of composition, and deliberate flatness of planes,
the style, which he called ‘synthetic symbolism’.
In 1883, Gauguin quit the stock exchange; financial troubles weren't long
in waiting. In 1885, he left his family in Copenhagen with his parents-in-law,
and returned to Paris. In 1886 and 1888, he worked in Brittany, beside
Emile Bernard, Laval and Meyer de Haan, he executed some of his most expressive
works, such as Breton Girls Dancing, Pont-Aven.
(1888), The Yellow Christ. (1889)
and Vision after the Sermon; Jacob Wrestling
with the Angel. (1888).
In October-December 1888, following the persistent suggestions of his
art-dealer, Theo van Gogh, Gauguin visited the man's brother, Vincent,
in Arles. His stay with the sick artist, whom he disliked and even despised
as a painter, and never bothered to conceal this, finished after a Van
Gogh cut off his own ear.
In 1891, he managed to organize a trip to Tahiti at the expense of the
French government; there he started his autobiographical Noa Noa (published
in 1897). He fell seriously ill, but despite this much and sent pictures
to Paris, where he did not return until 1893. In 1894 he took a farewell
visit to Copenhagen and in 1895 left for Tahiti a second time.
Plagued by illness (his health was ruined by alcohol and syphilis),
depression and financial worries, in 1898 he even attempted suicide, Gauguin
still painted numerous masterpieces D'où
venons nous? Que sommes-nous? Où allons-nous? (Where Do We come
from? What Are We? Where Are We Going?) (1897), And
the Gold of Their Bodies (Et l'or de leurs corps). (1901).
In 1900, after a contract with Vollard, a Parisian dealer, his financial
position improved, but his health was irreparably ruined. In 1901 he moved
from Tahiti to Atuana on the Island of Dominique in the Marquesas, where
his colors grew even more abundant and lush, and where he executed such
pink and mauve paintings as Horsemen on
the Beach. (1902) and The Call.
(1902).
In 1903, Gauguin was sentences to three-months in prison and fined 1,000
francs because of problems with the church and the colonial administration.
Before he could begin his sentence he died, on the 8th of May at his home
in Atuana.
Besides
legitimate children Gauguin had several illegitimate ones. A daughter Germaine
Chardon (born 13 August, 1891 - ?), herself an artist, from Juliette
Huais, who was Gauguin’s model and lover in 1890, he painted her in several
pictures: The Loss of Virginity.
Son Emile (born 1899 - ? ) from Tahitian Pau’ura. And another daughter,
born 14 September 1902, by Tahitian Mari-Rose Vaa’oho.
Bibliography:
Henri Perruchot. La vie de Gauguin. Hachette. Paris. 1961.
Paul Gauguin. His Life and Art. by A. Kantor-Gukovskaya. Moscow-Leningrad.
1965.
French Paintings from the Hermitage, Leningrad. Aurora. Leningrad.
1975.
Gauguin as viewed from Russia. Moscow. 1990.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary.
Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
Noa
Noa: The Tahitian Journal by Paul Gauguin. Dover Pubns, 1985.
Paul
Gauguin: An Erotic Life by Nancy Mowll Mathews. Yale Univ Pr,
2001.
Van
Gogh and Gauguin: The Studio of the South by Douglas Druick,
Peter Kort Zegers. Thames & Hudson, 2001.
The
Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa, Natasha Wimmer. Farrar
Straus Giroux, 2003.
Gauguin's
Intimate Journals by Paul Gauguin, Van Wyck Brooks, Emil Gauguin.
Dover Publications, 1997.
Van
Gogh and Gauguin: The Search for Sacred Art by Deborah Silverman.
Farrar Straus Giroux, 2000.