LECTURE: Paul Gauguin 1891-1903 French Polynesia

Paul Gaugin spent the last years of his life in the South Pacific from 1848-1903. His early years were in France until his journalist father who tried to overthrow Napolean had to flee France. They went to Peru where there were many relatives and this is where he grew up. Gaugin eventually took an Around the World voyage and came back to France where he became a successful stockbroker, gets married and has 5 children and does a little painting on the side as a hobby.

He was heavily influenced by Impressionists, mainly Monet. His paintings are very affected by colors, outdoors and the surroundings, sunlight, shadows and countrysides. It is never about people or objects. These were all paintings that required you to stand back to make sense of the scenery.

Unfortunately, the stock market crash left him unemployed and his wife takes the children to her family home in Denmark and his art is not appreciated there so he goes back to the bohemian life and his friends in Brittany, France (much less expensive than Paris). When he decides he is not successful at his art he decides to go to Panama for work but is not made for physical labor. Gaugin eventually ends up in the Caribbean in French Martinique where they do like his work.

Gaugin meets Vincent Van Gogh and then they begin to trade their artwork and eventually move in together and become close friends. Gaugin is now interesting in more of a Japanese style of painting. They start working together and move to Arles in 1888. Interestingly they often paint the same objects and somewhat compete as to whose is “better”. One night after a fight, Van Gogh cuts off his ear and Gaugin is done with him and goes back to Paris. A short time later Gaugin moves to Tahiti and later the Marquesas Islands where he does many painting and eventually wood carvings for the remainder of his life.

He was living an unhappy life and decides to end his life after he gets word that one of his children died. He decides to make one final painting and after sending it back to Paris, attempts suicide but failed. This painting was by far his most successful painting but his publicist told him not to come back to Paris as it would ruin the mystique people have of him. Soon thereafter he had a heart attack and died. Sadly, he became famous like many artists after his death.

Paul Gauguin’s most famous paintings, particularly those from his Tahitian period, have commanded some of the highest prices in art history. The value of Gauguin's work varies significantly between private sales and public auctions. Below are his most notable high-value sales:
-Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?) (1892): Sold privately for $210 million in 2014. It remains one of the most expensive paintings ever sold.
-Maternité II (1899): Set the current world auction record for the artist, selling for $105.7 million at Christie's New York in November 2022.
-Te Faaturuma (La Rêverie) (1891): Fetched $100.8 million in a 2018 sale at Sotheby's.
Bords de la rivière à Arles (1888): Sold for $40.3 million in 2011.
-Te Bourao II (1897): Sold at a Paris auction in 2019 for approximately $10.5 millionЧитать далее