by Sue Prideaux
First published 2024
Paul Gauguin transformed from Parisian stockbroker to post-Impressionist master, but his path was far from straight. After the 1882 financial crash destroyed his comfortable life, he sold tarpaulins in Copenhagen and dug canals in Panama City while fighting to sustain his art. Sue Prideaux traces Gauguin's journey from privileged childhood in Peru through his rebellious French youth, his galvanizing years in the Paris art scene, and his fateful encounters with Vincent van Gogh and August Strindberg. She follows him to French Polynesia, where he painted his most celebrated works while working as a journalist exposing colonial injustices. Drawing from new materials and access to Gauguin's family, Prideaux reveals the man behind the myth. She captures his visual exuberance and creative breakthroughs alongside his fierce temperament and personal flaws. This biography offers readers a fresh view of an artist whose bold colors and compositions changed Western art, showing how his unconventional life shaped his revolutionary vision.
Genres: biography, history, 20th-century, biography-memoir, 19th-century, art-history
Vibes: compelling, intimate, nuanced, revelatory, thought-provoking
Tropes: artistic-struggle, myth-versus-reality, rags-to-riches, reinvention
Setting: Paris, Peru, Copenhagen, Panama City, French Polynesia
Period: 1882 financial crash, 19th century, 20th century
410 pages · Paperback · Faber & Faber
Content warnings: colonialism