Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) was born in Paris and spent his early childhood in Peru. From 1871 he worked for eleven years as a stockbroker in Paris, painting in his spare time. Largely self-taught, he found a mentor in Camille Pissarro, who introduced him to the Impressionists, and he exhibited with them in the early 1880s. After the stock market crash of 1882 he resolved to make his living from painting. At Pont-Aven in Brittany, among Émile Bernard and others, and under the influence of folk art and Japanese prints, he moved towards flat areas of pure colour and bold outline. The Yellow Christ of 1889, with its colour held within heavy black outlines, is often cited as the quintessential Cloisonnist work. In 1891 he sailed for Tahiti, seeking to escape European civilisation, and he died in 1903 at Atuona in the Marquesas Islands. His work was a strong influence on Picasso and Matisse. Here: The Yellow Christ.