Famous for the whole world painter and sculptor Paul Gauguin – one of a galaxy of great masters, the recognition of which came only years after his death. Contemporaries did not appreciate his work, which condemned Gauguin to vegetation, but subsequently came to him worldwide fame.
Although during his lifetime Paul Gauguin lived in poverty and his paintings were not in demand, now his painting “When is the wedding?” Is one of the most expensive paintings ever sold in the world – in 2015 a buyer from Qatar purchased it for about $ 300 million .
When the future artist was only a year old, his family decided to move to the motherland of Gauguin’s mother – in Peru. His father planned to open his own magazine there, but died while swimming from a heart attack (interesting facts about Peru).
After returning to France, the grown up Gauguin tried to enter the nautical school, but failed the exam. Then he hired a vessel as a student of the pilot, and for nearly 6 years continuously sailed the seas and oceans.
When Gauguin’s mother died, he decided to settle down – returned to Paris, got a job as a stockbroker and made a successful career. In addition, he married and soon became the father of five children.
Gauguin never studied painting.
Deciding to devote himself entirely to art, Gauguin abandoned his wife and children in Copenhagen, where his family lived then, and left to conquer the French capital.
For a while, Gauguin was staying with another great artist, Vincent Van Gogh. The painters worked successfully together, but then between them there was a major quarrel, caused by a frenzy of Van Gogh.
In the autumn of 1888, Van Gogh painted the painting “Gauguin’s Armchair”, which is now kept in his museum in Amsterdam.
The first version of the painting “Sunflowers” with two flowers Van Gogh wrote for Gauguin (in a later version of the picture buds five). In response, Gauguin depicted on his own canvas Van Gogh, writing a still life with sunflowers.
The last years of his life, Gauguin spent on an exotic island in Oceania, where his wife was a young Tahitian woman. Although the artist was sick with leprosy and suffered from poverty and depression, it was on this island that he wrote his best paintings.
Gauguin was so poor that he had to paint for his paintings on his own.
The painter became the prototype of the protagonist of the novel “The Moon and Pennies”, written by Somerset Maugham.
Gauguin became famous only after his death, when in Paris an exhibition of more than 225 of his works was organized.
The name of Gauguin called one of the craters on Mercury.
Paul Gauguin suffered from alcoholism and was a great fan of absinthe.
Until now, there is a picture in which Gauguin plays without pants on a piano in the Paris studio Alfons Mucha.
Gauguin not only painted pictures, but also created unique ceramic products, which he valued highly – he never used a potter’s wheel and gave his creations a form with his hands. In addition, Gauguin was fond of carving wood.
After a thorough study of the Bible, Gauguin wrote four self-portraits on which the artist was portrayed in the image of Christ.
