Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) was a French painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was first a stockbroker and began as a Sunday painter among the Impressionists. In Pont-Aven in Brittany he and Émile Bernard developed Synthetism, with flat colours and strong outlines; in 1888 he worked with Van Gogh in Arles for nine weeks. From 1891 he lived mostly in Tahiti and later in the Marquesas Islands, where he painted works such as Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (1897). He died in Atuona on Hiva Oa.