By Paul Dunwell, writing for EasyFrame
© Copyright EasyFrame 2021
What this article is about
Born Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin in Paris to a relatively privileged family, Gauguin was a painter, printmaker and writer who also worked in wood, ceramics and stoneware. He travelled widely and painted in what were then, and still are, exotic locations. The first commercial cameras went on sale only when he was 40, so he captured an era as nobody else could. His travels fed his development of what is called 'primitivism'.
He was not commercially successful in his lifetime, but other artists recognised him as a genius with colour: notably Edgar Degas, a great friend; Vincent van Gogh, with whom he had a troubled friendship; Camille Pissarro, a friend for a while; and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Monet and Renoir did not rate him. Later Matisse and Picasso were hugely inspired by his work.
Gauguin died rather suddenly at 55. His belongings were auctioned for just 4,000 francs. One painting was bought by a French naval officer on behalf of the governor. In 2004 it sold at Sotheby's for a little under USm.
Family, education and a career before art
Gauguin was born in 1848, a year of upheaval across Europe. His father, Clovis, was a journalist who upset the authorities, and the family had to flee France in 1850. His mother, Aline Chazal, had revolutionary socialist parents with connections to prominent Peruvians, so they set off for Peru. Clovis died on the voyage, leaving Aline a widow with little Paul and his slightly older sister. Fortunately her family was related to the man about to become president of Peru, and they were looked after royally, but only for 4 years, until political turbulence drove them back to France. Paul was left with his grandfather in Orléans while his mother worked as a dressmaker in Paris.
He went to a succession of good schools, then joined the merchant navy and later the navy. Between 1862 and 1871 he studied and served for 8 years and acquired a taste for travel on voyages to places including India.
In 1871 he became a stockbroker. In 1873 he married a Dane, Mette-Sophie Gad, who knew he had begun to paint in his spare time. They had five children, and he could afford it: by 1879 he was making today's equivalent of around £¼m a year from his work and from art dealing.
In 1882 the Paris stock market crashed and his earnings with it. He decided to become a full-time artist. His friend Pissarro seemed likely to help in 1883, but that didn't last, and by 1886 they had fallen out altogether. In 1884 he moved to Denmark, probably to keep the marriage together, and was pressed into selling tarpaulins. He spoke no Danish, the Danes didn't want French tarpaulins, and his wife didn't want him painting full time. Within a year she asked him to leave. He returned to Paris. Within a few years he had lost contact with her and all the children except his six-year-old son Clovis, and within 10 years she had ended everything. Mette-Sophie had a hard time of it and took up teaching. Tellingly, she kept his art collection.
Back in Paris
There was interest in Gauguin's work but no sales, and he fell into desperate poverty. His son became unwell and was sent to boarding school by Gauguin's sister. He took menial jobs, painted little and probably got into too many arguments about impressionism, which had disappointed him and was losing its public appeal anyway.
It wasn't all bad. He spent time at an artists' colony in Brittany because it was cheap, and found himself popular for his painting, boxing, fencing and Bohemian dress and manner.
He was increasingly interested in African and Oriental art, especially Japanese. Japan had opened up in 1853, and prints by Hokusai and others were all over Europe. Gauguin and others were intrigued by their lack of perspective, their flat colours and their bold black outlines. His 'Yellow Christ' is a prime example of Cloisonnism, named after the cloisonné technique in which metal strips separate areas of enamel. You could call it modernism. Ironically, you will also hear it called primitivism. It is also described as 'synthetist': art that keeps the outward appearance of natural forms while conveying the artist's feelings about the subject through pure line, colour and form.
Panama, Martinique and Tahiti
After travelling to Panama, Gauguin fetched up in Martinique, where he lived in a rudimentary hut and fell ill. He still painted a little and took a real interest in the islanders. Theo van Gogh bought three of the 11 paintings he made there, and Gauguin later painted alongside Theo's brother Vincent in France.
In the early 1890s he went to Tahiti, having sold some work in Paris and seen his wife and children in Denmark for the last time. He had promised to escape European civilisation and yet come back rich. The irony was that his market, if he was ever to be rich, would always be in Europe.
He fell in love with Tahiti and its people and kept detailed notes of all he saw. There he took as a 'wife' a girl of 13, Teha'amana, on the day they met. It was exploitation by any standard, and it is rightly condemned today. He left her with a child in 1892 and never went back to see her. It has long been supposed that he had syphilis, though the evidence is disputed.
In 1893 Gauguin was back in France. Still on his uppers, he seems to have had the French government repatriate him, a trick he used more than once. Things picked up in Paris. He inherited money from an uncle but gave very little to Mette-Sophie, never mind Teha'amana. He kept up his Bohemian ways and had another spell in Brittany. But sales were poor, many saw his work, ceramics included, as pornographic, and galleries were reluctant to show it. Disillusioned with Paris once more, he wanted to return to Tahiti. In 1895 his friends had a whip-round for the fare. He never came back.
The last years
Gauguin spent the rest of his days in Tahiti and, from 1901, at Atuona in the Marquesas Islands. He lived with another girl, Pau'ura, who was just 14½ when he met her and bore him two children. His fortunes see-sawed. At times he was comfortable enough to build a couple of spacious homes. At others he was in such straits that he took an administrative job. He sometimes had a guaranteed income, but had to paint and sell a lot of pictures cheaply to earn it. In the end he became a newspaper editor for stability.
He upset the local church, not least when it found the walls of his home covered in European pornography. After his death many of his belongings were judged obscene and destroyed. Yet Christian themes run through some of his paintings, and he seemed to believe he was meant to suffer.
He had many lows, and not only financial. He was ill. He smashed an ankle in a fight so badly that it never healed. He used drugs heavily. His favourite daughter, Aline, died of pneumonia before him. He admitted to being suicidal when he painted his last great work, 'Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?'
Soon after his death his reputation took off. In 1906 the Salon d'Automne showed 227 of his paintings. In 2014 'When Will You Marry?' reportedly fetched US0m, one of the highest prices ever paid for a painting.
Conclusion
Paul Gauguin was a contradiction. He was disciplined enough to serve almost a decade at sea, focused enough to thrive on the stock market and driven enough to teach himself to be a world-class painter. Yet he abandoned his family, and his treatment of the young girls he lived with in Polynesia cannot be excused. The work and the man have to be weighed separately.
You can buy unframed prints of his work easily and affordably. Try www.fineartprintsondemand.com/artists/gauguin/prints.htm.
You'll want to frame whatever you buy. Any good framers will show you a range of solutions and advise on what suits the work and where it will hang. EasyFrame is on 01234 856 501 and sales@EasyFrame.co.uk, and they'll always chat even if you don't want to buy!