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Self-Portrait with Portrait of Bernard
1888
Oil on Canvas, 45 x 55 cm
Photo: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
In 1851 the family left Paris for Peru to escape political repression. His father died on the voyage leaving his mother to fend for herself and the young Paul and his sister. They lived for four years in Lima with Chazal's brother and family.
So, from the earliest age Paul Gauguin was exposed to, and influenced by, forms and a colour palette that was distinctly non-European.
The family returned to France when Gauguin was seven and lived in Orleans with his grandfather. At seventeen Gauguin went to sea as part of his required military service. He joined the merchant's marine in 1865 and then joined the navy. In 1871 he returned to Paris where he became a successful stockbroker. In 1873 he married a Danish woman, Mette Sophie Gad, with whom he had five children over the next ten years.
