Skip Channel4 main Navigation
Gauguin's poverty and lack of recognition helped fuel his growing disillusion with European civilisation. In 1891 he left France for Tahiti. He returned for lack of money a couple of years later but then moved to the South Sea Islands in 1895. He moved to Punaauia in 1897 and then spent his remaining years in the Marquesas Islands.
This constant shuttling between France and Polynesia, between the metropolitan centre of convention and commerce, then the freedom and exoticism of the tropics informs all of Gauguin's later work. The colours, forms and subjects of his unspoiled peoples may well have exaggerated the exotic but they served as vivid comment on the tired artistic conventions of his day and were enormously influential.
This constant shuttling between France and Polynesia, between the metropolitan centre of convention and commerce, then the freedom and exoticism of the tropics informs all of Gauguin's later work. The colours, forms and subjects of his unspoiled peoples may well have exaggerated the exotic but they served as vivid comment on the tired artistic conventions of his day and were enormously influential.
Always his own person, he clashed with the church and authorities, even at the outer reaches of French colonial rule. In 1903 Gauguin was sentenced to three months' imprisonment. But the cumulative effects of his unorthodox and dissipated lifestyle robbed the authorities of their prisoner.
Before he started his prison sentence, syphilis killed Gauguin at the age of 54. His paintings, sculptures, prints and sketches are now housed in galleries and museums all over the world, as befits his restless artistic, travelling life.
Before he started his prison sentence, syphilis killed Gauguin at the age of 54. His paintings, sculptures, prints and sketches are now housed in galleries and museums all over the world, as befits his restless artistic, travelling life.
