Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin was a French Post-Impressionist artist, whose work deeply influenced the French avant-garde and modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. As a descendant of the Peruvian nobility, he spent his early childhood in Lima, Peru. This nomadic upbringing aroused his curiosity for exotic lands and cultures, which would eventually lead him to Tahiti and Martinique. Gauguin discovered art relatively late in life. He was married and working in Paris as a stockbroker when he befriended painter, Camille Pissarro. By 1879 he was Pissarro’s unofficial pupil and patron, and after the stock market crashed in 1882, Gauguin decided to become an artist full-time. His early paintings were mainly Impressionist landscapes influenced by Pissarro and Paul Cezanne, who he met through Pissarro.

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin

• Born: June 7, 1848 Died: May 8, 1903 Active Years: 1873 - 1903
• Nationality: French Art Movement: Symbolism, Post-Impressionism
• Painting School: Pont-Aven School
• Field: painting, sculpture, engraving
• Influenced by: Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro, Giotto, Raphael, Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Eugene Delacroix, Edouard Manet, Paul Cezanne, Alfred Sisley 
• Teachers: Camille Pissarro Pupils: Pekka Halonen
• Art institution: Académie Colarossi, Paris, France