PAUL GAUGUIN

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin (UK: /ˈɡoʊɡæ̃/, US: /ɡoʊˈɡæ̃/, French: [øʒɛn ɑ̃ʁi pɔl ɡoɡɛ̃]; 7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a French Post-Impressionist artist. Unappreciated until after his death, Gauguin is now recognized for his experimental use of colour and Synthetist style that were distinct from Impressionism. Toward the end of his life, he spent ten years in French Polynesia. The paintings from this time depict people or landscapes from that region.

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His work was influential on the French avant-garde and many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, and he is well known for his relationship with Vincent and Theo van Gogh. Gauguin's art became popular after his death, partially from the efforts of dealer Ambroise Vollard, who organized exhibitions of his work late in his career and assisted in organizing two important posthumous exhibitions in Paris.

8 May 1903 (aged 54)

Atuona, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia

EARLY LIFE

• Gauguin was born in Paris to Clovis Gauguin and Aline Chazal on 7 June 1848, the year of revolutionary upheavals throughout Europe. His father, a 34-year-old liberal journalist from a family of entrepreneurs in Orléans, was compelled to flee France when the newspaper for which he wrote was suppressed by French authorities. Gauguin's mother was the 22-year-old daughter of André Chazal, an engraver, and Flora Tristan, an author and activist in early socialist movements. Their union ended when André assaulted his wife Flora and was sentenced to prison for attempted murder.
• Paul Gauguin's maternal grandmother, Flora Tristan, was the illegitimate daughter of Thérèse Laisnay and Don Mariano de Tristan Moscoso. Details of Thérèse's family background are not known; Don Mariano came from an aristocratic Spanish family from the Peruvian city of Arequipa. He was an officer of the Dragoons.Members of the wealthy Tristan Moscoso family held powerful positions in Peru. Nonetheless, Don Mariano's unexpected death plunged his mistress and daughter Flora into poverty. When Flora's marriage 

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Aline Marie Chazal Tristán, (1825–1867) "The Artist's Mother", 1889, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Gauguin's maternal grandmother, Flora Tristan (1803–1844) in 1838

EDUCATION AND FIRST JOB

• After attending a couple of local schools, Gauguin was sent to the prestigious Catholic boarding school Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin. He spent three years at the school. At the age of 14, he entered the Loriol Institute in Paris, a naval preparatory school, before returning to Orléans to take his final year at the Lycée Jeanne D'Arc. Gauguin signed on as a pilot's assistant in the merchant marine. Three years later, he joined the French navy in which he served for two years.[23] His mother died on 7 July 1867, but he did not learn of it for several months until a letter from his sister Marie caught up with him in India.

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• In 1871, Gauguin returned to Paris where he secured a job as a stockbroker. A close family friend, Gustave Arosa, got him a job at the Paris Bourse; Gauguin was 23. He became a successful Parisian businessman and remained one for the next 11 years. In 1879 he was earning 30,000 francs a year (about $145,000 in 2019 US dollars) as a stockbroker, and as much again in his dealings in the art market.[26][27] But in 1882 the Paris stock market crashed and the art market contracted. Gauguin's earnings deteriorated sharply and he eventually decided to pursue painting full-time.

MARRIAGE

• In 1873, he married a Danish woman, Mette-Sophie Gad (1850–1920). Over the next ten years, they had five children: Émile (1874–1955); Aline (1877–1897); Clovis (1879–1900); Jean René (1881–1961); and Paul Rollon (1883–1961). By 1884, Gauguin had moved with his family to Copenhagen, Denmark, where he pursued a business career as a tarpaulin salesman. It was not a success: He could not speak Danish, and the Danes did not want French tarpaulins. Mette became the chief breadwinner, giving French lessons to trainee diplomats.
• His middle-class family and marriage fell apart after 11 years when Gauguin was driven to paint full-time. He returned to Paris in 1885, after his wife and her family asked him to leave because he had renounced the values they shared. Gauguin's last physical contact with them was in 1891, and Mette eventually broke with him decisively in 1894.

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Gauguin with his wife Mette in Copenhagen, Denmark, 1885

FIRST PAINTINGS

• In 1873, around the time he became a stockbroker, Gauguin began painting in his free time. His Parisian life centered on the 9th arrondissement of Paris. Gauguin lived at 15, rue la Bruyère. Nearby were the cafés frequented by the Impressionists. Gauguin also visited galleries frequently and purchased work by emerging artists. He formed a friendship with Camille Pissarro[39] and visited him on Sundays to paint in his garden. Pissarro introduced him to various other artists. In 1877 Gauguin "moved downmarket and across the river to the poorer, newer, urban sprawls" of Vaugirard. Here, on the third floor at 8 rue Carcel, he had his first home with a studio.

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• His close friend Émile Schuffenecker, a former stockbroker who also aspired to become an artist, lived close by. Gauguin showed paintings in Impressionist exhibitions held in 1881 and 1882 (earlier, a sculpture of his son Émile had been the only sculpture in the 4th Impressionist Exhibition of 1879). His paintings received dismissive reviews, although several of them, such as The Market Gardens of Vaugirard, are now highly regarded.

Study of a Nude (Suzanne sewing), 1880, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

PAINTINGS

The Market Gardens of Vaugirard, 1879, Smith College Museum of Art

Winter Landscape, 1879, Museum of Fine Arts, Budapes

Portrait of Madame Gauguin, c. 1880–81, Foundation E.G. Bührle, Zürich

Garden in Vaugirard (Painter's Family in the Garden in Rue Carcel), 1881, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Four Breton Women, 1886, Neue Pinakothek, Munich

Women Bathing, 1885, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo

La Bergère Bretonne, 1886, Laing Art Gallery

Breton Girl, 1886, Burrell Collection, Glasgow

Breton Bather, 1886–87, Art Institute of Chicago

Cloisonnism and synthetism

Martinique Landscape 1887, Scottish National Gallery

Huttes sous les arbres, 1887, Private collection, Washington

Bord de Mer II, 1887, Private collection, Paris

At the Pond, 1887, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Conversation Tropiques (Négresses Causant), 1887, Private collection, Dallas

Among the Mangoes (La Cueillette des Fruits), 1887, Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam.

THANKS

• Dr. Shailender Kumar
• (Assist.Prof.)
• Fine Arts Dept.