Paul Gauguin Biography

 Gauguin was born June 7, 1848, Paris, France
  and died May 8, 1903, Atuona, Hiva Oa, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia                  
  (in full  Eugène-Henri-Paul Gauguin  Gauguin was a French painter, printmaker, and sculptor who sought to achieve a “primitive” expression of spiritual and emotional states in his paintings. Gauguin, whose paintings have been categorized as Post-Impressionist, Synthetist, and Symbolist, is particularly well known for his creative relationship with Vincent van Gogh, as well as for his self-imposed exile in Tahiti, French Polynesia. Gauguin's artistic experiments influenced many avant-garde developments in the early 20th century.

               Beginnings
  Gauguin was the son of a journalist from Orléans and a mother of Peruvian descent. After Napoleon III’s coup d’état, Gauguin and his family moved in 1851 to Lima, Peru; four years later, after the death of his father, the family returned to France. At age 17 Gauguin enlisted in the merchant marine, and for six years he sailed around the world. Gauguin's mother died in 1867, leaving legal guardianship.
  In the summer of 1888 Gauguin returned to Pont-Aven, searching for what he called “a reasoned and frank return to the beginning, that is to say, to primitive art.” Gauguin was joined there by young painters, including Émile Bernard and Paul Sérusier, who also were seeking a more direct expression in their painting. Gauguin achieved a step towards this ideal  
                                                                  
               Thaiti
  Gauguin arrived in Papeete in June 1891. Gauguin came with a romantic image of Tahiti as an untouched paradise, derived in part from Pierre Loti’s novel Le Mariage de Loti (1880). Disappointed by the extent to which French colonization had actually corrupted Tahiti, Gauguin attempted to immerse himself in what he believed were the authentic aspects of the culture. Gauguin employed Tahitian

               Assessment
  Gauguin’s influence was immense and varied. His legacy rests partly in his dramatic decision to reject the materialism of contemporary culture in favour of a more spiritual, unfettered lifestyle. It also rests in his tireless experimentation. Scholars have long identified Gauguin with a range of stylistic movements, and the challenge of defining his oeuvre, particularly.