Paul Gauguin

Where Do We Come From? — Tahitian vision

The stockbroker who abandoned civilization for art. He fled Paris for Brittany, then Tahiti, then the Marquesas, painting flat planes of saturated color and Polynesian subjects that broke definitively with European naturalism. His quest for the primitive influenced Matisse, Picasso, and the German Expressionists.

Key works

• Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?1897— His largest painting — painted before a suicide attempt
  Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
• Vision After the Sermon1888— Breton women, Jacob, and the angel — flat, bold, revolutionary
  National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh

Connections

External