Paul Gauguin (French, 1848-1903)
The pioneering French Post-Impressionist painter was known for his bold colors, symbolic themes, and, later in life, a primitive artistic ideal derived from his time in Polynesia. His formal education was limited to high school, and later the French Navy. Returning home to Paris, after a career in banking and marriage, he became a professional painter through his interest in the Impressionists, especially Pissaro and Van Gogh. His painting was initially met with little success, and to some degree this led to his desire to escape to a more basic civilization which he found in Martinique, Panama, and Tahiti. His vibrant, non-naturalistic painting gained posthumous fame through dealers like Ambroise Vollard. His exotic palette and his self-mythologized “savage” persona anchors him as an artist who valued artistic freedom and influenced modern movements such as Fauvism and Symbolism.
