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Birth and family
Paul Gauguin was born in Notre-Dame-de-Lorette, Paris. His father, Clovis Gauguin, was a journalist and his mother, Aline Marie Chazal, was of Spanish noble blood. -
Paul Gauguin spends his childhood in Peru
The family was obliged to leave France when Emperor Napoleon took over the government in 1849. The family moved to Lima, Peru, but Clovis died of a heart attack mid-voyage. Paul spent the next six years of his childhood in Peru. In 1855, Aline and her children returned to France and the year of 1861 got back to Paris. -
Paul Gauguin war experience
At the age of 17, Paul performed his military service in the Luzitano, a merchant navy ship which plied the route between Le Havre and Rio de Janeiro. In 1867 he switched to the Chili, which sailed to Polynesia. The next year he was serving in a naval warship and, in 1870, was involved in the Franco-Prussian War. -
Paul Gauguin marries Mette-Sophie Gad
In November 1873, he married a Danish woman staying in Paris to widen her education, Mette-Sophie Gad and the couple led a highly conventional life. -
The beginning of art
From 1873, Gauguin had been spending his weekends painting, but at some point, he realised that he was wasting his weekdays. -
The couple had their first child
Their first child named Emile and he was born on September 1874. They mad him a portrait. -
Impressionism
Gauguin's own interest in art and the new impressionist movement crossed paths in April 1874 in Paris at the First Impressionist Exhibition. Impressionists like Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Berthe Morisot attempted to capture momentary effects of light and colour, and Gauguin was so impressed he was one of the few buyers at the exhibition. Gauguin began to entertain the idea of turning from hobbyist to professional painter. -
Paul Gauguin has a painting accepted by the Paris Salon
In 1876, he enrolled at the Académie Colarossi. The same year, Gauguin's Landscape at Viroflay was accepted by the Paris Salon, the institution which held a virtual monopoly on exhibiting fine art. -
Their second child
Their second child named Aline was born in September 1877 -
He got invited to show his work
Gauguin was invited by his fellow artists to show his work in the Fourth Independent Impressionist Exhibition in Paris in April 1879. -
Paul Gauguin works with Pissaro
He spent some time in Pontoise painting with Pisarro, a partnership they repeated in the summer of 1881. -
Paul Gauguin bacame a full time artist
Following the 1882 Paris stock market crash, Gauguin finally decided to give up his work in the city and become a full-time artist from January 1883. -
Paul Gauguin moves to Rouen
In 1884, he moved to Rouen, hoping to find more sales for his paintings. This proved a mistake and the entire family moved to Copenhagen to be with Mette's family. Once there, Gauguin worked as a salesman for a French company producing nautical canvas, although not with any success. Family relations were also strained, but at least Gauguin secured an exhibition at the Society of Fine Art in Copenhagen, even if it failed to raise much public interest. -
Paul Gauguin leaves his wife and moves to Paris
Gauguin decided to leave Mette, who was now independent and working as a teacher and translator, and in June 1885, he returned to Paris and then Dieppe. -
Paul Gauguin moves to Brittany
In June, he moved on to Pont-Aven in Brittany where the cost of living was much lower, one reason why it was popular with artists. Here Gauguin developed his distinctive style, adopting brighter colours and using thicker brushstrokes to create bold outlines and vivid areas of flat colour. -
Eighth Impressionist Exhibition
He still participated in the Eighth Impressionist Exhibition in May 1886, contributing 19 works, but many of the old impressionists had moved on, and Gauguin was now an outsider. Nor was the artist given the comfortable position in society he had once enjoyed as a stockbroker and art collector. People pointed their fingers accusingly at his abandonment of his family. -
Gauguin decided to re-visit Panama
Still searching for a new avenue for his art, Gauguin decided to re-visit Panama in April 1887. As he explained in one letter to Mette in a correspondence that had remained unbroken by their physical separation, "I must get my energy back, and I'm going to Panama to live like a savage. -
Gauguin left for the French colony of Martinique
Unfortunately, finding any commissions for portraits amongst the wealthier inhabitants of Panama proved elusive, and the artist was obliged to work for a time as a labourer on the giant construction site that was on the way to becoming the Panama canal. He then contracted dysentery. Fed up with the whole idea, Gauguin left for the French colony of Martinique in June. -
Gauguin goes back to Paris
The two artists painted successfully for a while – producing 20 canvases each – but their strong characters and different views on art caused tremendous clashes. After one fiery discussion in late December, Gauguin left to spend the night in a hotel. The next morning, he returned to the Yellow House to discover Vincent had cut off one of his ears in the first of many mental breakdowns the artist suffered. Gauguin left for Paris immediately. -
Paul shares a house with Van Gogh
By October 1888, Gauguin had racked up debts in Pont-Aven, but he was rescued by Theo van Gogh and his brother Vincent who invited Gauguin to join him in Arles in southern France. They shared the Yellow House in Arles, Vincent having made it a pleasant home decorated with his canvases, including several of sunflowers that Gauguin greatly admired. -
Gauguin's paintings exhibited
In February 1889, several of Gauguin's paintings were exhibited in an exhibition in Brussels organised by the noted dealer Paul Durand-Ruel (1831-1922). In the same month, the artist moved back to Pont-Aven, but it had by now become too touristy and so he moved on to the fishing village of Le Pouldu where he headed a group of like-minded artists who regarded Gauguin as their leader. -
Paul moves to Tahiti
In April 1891, Gauguin decided to leave France and head for Tahiti; he left both Juliette and his wife Mette and five children behind but did visit the latter in Copenhagen in March before he sailed to the Pacific. The voyage was paid for by auctioning 30 of his paintings. An agreement with the French Ministry of Fine Arts that Gauguin capture on canvas the local customs of Tahiti allowed him to get a discount on the voyage. -
Gauguin comes back to Paris
The critics were less than enthusiastic, and the sales did not cover the exhibition's costs. Even artists gave a mixed reaction. -
Back to Tahiti
Back in Tahiti in September.He moved to the tiny village of Punaauia to nurse his failing health and paint. A small amount of money trickled to him from Paris, where a few dealers were selling his works but at disappointingly low prices. "What have I achieved? Utter defeat…Bad luck has dogged me relentlessly" Gauguin wrote. He continued to paint feverishly, blending local colour with all the art he had ever encountered and his own vivid imagination. -
Gauguin leaves France
In June 1895, Gauguin left France, he hoped it would be definitively, and in that he was right. En route to Papeete, he stopped off at Aukland and was much impressed by the Maori art he saw there. -
Health problems
By 1897, Gauguin was convinced that his health problems could only worsen, and he attempted suicide. From rock bottom, the artist within him then rose to create what he considered the finest painting of his career: Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? This huge frieze-like canvas measures 4.5 metres (15 ft) in length, but none of its ambiguous and mystical figures presents an easy answer to the questions in the painting's title. -
Gauguin moves to Hiva Oa
In September 1901, Gauguin moved on to Hiva Oa in the Marquesas Islands. He was looking for a more authentic insight into an unspoilt Polynesia, and it was much cheaper. He named his primitive hut Maison du Jouir ('House of Pleasure') and once again acquired a young companion, Marie Rose, the daughter of a tribal chief. -
Death
After years of heart problems and the debilitating effects of syphilis, alcoholism, and malaria, Paul Gauguin died on 8 May 1903. He was buried in the cemetery at Hiva Oa, and his possessions and artworks were sold to whoever wanted them.
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