• Had he not been a gifted painter, Paul Gauguin would have been forgotten to the ages. He died a dissatisfied man, repeatedly unsuccessful in relationships with both friends and family. He lived the life of a decadent French ex-patriot, having rejected any sense of home. In his last days as he neared his 55th birthday, I would like to think there was an introspective moment where he sat on a Marquesan beach at sunset looking back on his life.
  
  
• Maybe he would have thought of his life before painting ...
• Maybe he recalled his early childhood in Peru where his mother told him of his birth in a far away place called France, and how his father died en route to Peru on the voyage across the great ocean.
• Or, he could have recalled glimpses of memories he had as a small boy, aboard ship on the return ocean voyage to France and his fascination with the ship's sailors, longing to be like them.
• He could have thought of his paternal grandfather, growing up with him in Orleans and his days at boarding school while his mother worked as a dressmaker in Paris.
• And he could have recalled his virile and daring years, when he circled the globe as a sailor in the Merchant Marine and the French Navy, including 13 months aboard the Luzitano, going back and forth between Le Havre and Rio de Janeiro.

• For a moment, he could have recalled the pain at age 18, reading of his mother's death in a months-old letter from his sister Marie which finally caught up with him in India.
• But we know of no such moment. Paul had never exhibited any fondness for the past. He rarely exhibited any tolerance for the present. He always seemed fixed on the future, escaping his present circumstance for far away places and adventures.

To the right is a video created for the Tate Britain's Gauguin Exhibition in 2010-2011. The narration is in the first person, quoted from excerpts of Gauguin's letters.

Below is some of what we do know of Paul Gauguin's artistic life, illustrated with his own paintings Linda and I saw this past August at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and paintings we saw in January at Paul Gauguin: A Spiritual Journey at San Francisco's de Young Museum, featuring paintings from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.

After his sailing days, Paul arrived in Paris. In 1871 he embarked on the most prosperous and stable portion of his life.

He began working as a stockbroker. For the first time in his life, he was making a good income, secure enough to marry and provide for a family, with sufficient leisure time to begin painting. In 1873, Paul married a Danish woman, Mette-Sophie Gad (1850-1920) resulting in five children.

Because of his new career and his rising financial health, Paul Gauguin had sufficient leisure time to dabble in a hobby, painting. He was self taught with promising talent. He soon made friends a with a new group of painters labeled as "impressionists." From these friendships and lots of hard work, Paul's painting abilities advanced quickly.

Paul lived in Paris at 15, rue la Bruyere. Nearby were the cafes frequented by the Impressionists. Paul visited these haunts often and became a friend of Camille Pissarro, an established artist nearly 20 years older. Soon, Paul, along with other young artists, was visiting Pissarro in his garden on Sundays.

As his painting skills improved, Paul began showing his paintings, including at the Impressionist Exhibitions of 1881-82. Although his paintings weren't well received at the time, today they are highly regarded.

After 11 successful years as a stockbroker, Paul's financial fortunes changed for the worse.

The French stock market crashed, and the art market followed suit. Gauguin lost his stockbroker career and its income, and in response, at the the worst possible time, Paul defiantly and willfully decided to dedicate himself to becoming a full-time artist.

He asked Pissarro for help which Pissarro readily gave. Paul spent the summers of the early 1880's painting with Pissarro and Paul Cezanne. He downsized his expenses drastically and moved his family to Rouen where they could live more cheaply. But his tightening of the purse strings wasn't enough.

By 1884, Mette-Sophie had had enough, and she and the children moved back to her family's home in Copenhagen. In November of 1884, Paul followed, bringing his art collection which for the most part, remained in Denmark and today is the core of the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek's Paul Gauguin collection.

Paul took his bruised ego and artistic dreams back to Paris. He went through the motions, as if he were helping out in bearing his parental responsibilities. He took his son Clovis to Paris while Mette-Sophie remained with the other four children. She worked as a French translator. But Paul's small share of the parental duties faltered. His sister Marie intervened, rescuing her nephew Clovis from Paul's dreamy neglect, even to the extent of paying for Clovis to attend boarding school.

Freed for the entanglements of a wife and children, Paul worked to establish himself as an artist. Always a dreamer, Paul once said, "I paint and dream at the same time." He exhibited 19 paintings at the 8th and last Impressionist Exhibition of 1886. This exhibition established Georges Seurat as the leader of the French avant-garde movement. Paul rejected Seurat's neo-impressionist pointillist technique, and later in the year, he broke off his friendship with Camille Pissarro. The exhibition had a small success. Paul sold a painting to Felix Bracquemond.

Not finding success in Paris, Paul moved to Pont-Aven in 1886, a small town near the French Coast in Brittany. The town was the summer home of a growing number of young artists, and it was inexpensive. Paul, seasoned and older, was popular among the younger painters. Paul's pugilistic temperament and his fencing and boxing skills helped secure his popularity. He became a very good friend of a promising artist, 13 years younger, Charles Laval. Laval was of the "Synthetist School," artists who moved beyond impressionism. They retained natural forms, but allowed artists to express their feelings of the subject, and presenting the subject aesthetically with line-defined form, emphasizing two-dimensional flat patterns and a bold use of pure color.

Paul joined with the artists of the Pont-Aven school, including Emile Bernard, Charles Laval and Emile Schuffenecker. Paul felt impressionism had become too imitative and lacked symbolic depth. To inject some life into the art, Paul looked to African and Asian Art, older and more primitive, art which was full of mystic symbolism and life. Paul was not alone in this search. French artists were embracing Japonism. Paul began embracing Cloisonnism (mirroring a medieval enameling technique), exaggerating flat areas of painting with bold color and outline.

In the Summer of 1886, Paul Gauguin and Charles Laval visited Panama and Martinique. A series of mishaps occurred in Panama requiring Paul and Charles to make a swift exit. On the cruise back to France, they stopped on the Caribbean island of Martinique.

On Martinique, Paul developed a taste for island living. He lived in a Negro's hut which suited him, and he spontaneously decided to stay until October, nearly four months.

Paul enjoyed swimming on the beach, and loved the market, especially the women, daughters of former slaves (slavery ended in 1848). These women would come to market, fill their baskets with mangos, guavas and coconuts. Then, placing their baskets atop their heads, gracefully, with swinging hips and arms, balance their load as they walked back to their homes.

Back in France, Vincent Van Gogh saw some of Gauguin's paintings at Arsene Poitier's gallery. Vincent told his brother Theo of them. Vincent and Paul became friends. At Theo Van Gogh's suggestion, in early November of 1888, Paul and Vincent attempted to establish an art colony in the South of France at Arles, influenced by Japanese prints. Despite good intentions, the relationship soured with Gauguin announcing abruptly that he was leaving. Later, the same evening it is believed that Vincent, in a depressed episode, took a razor and severed his left ear. Gauguin left the following day and the two never saw each other again. They continued to correspond, with Paul offering an idea for Vincent to consider ... that the pair establish a joint studio in Antwerp, but nothing became of the idea.

In 1891, Paul conceived of a an artistic sojourn to Tahiti, the farthest and most exotic place he could go and still be on French soil. He raised funds with a successful auction of paintings at the Hotel Drouot in February of 1891. After a visit with Mette-Sophie in Copenhagen which proved to be the last time he saw his wife or his children, he set sail for Tahiti in April 1891, arriving in June. He confidently promised to return a wealthy man.

After three months in Papeete, Paul felt the town too expensive and too influenced by European culture to fit his ideals of primitivism. He moved 30 miles away to Mataiea, built a hut and made his studio. From there, Paul sent paintings back to George-Daniel de Monfreid, a friend of his artist friend Emile Schuffenecker. In all, Paul sent nine paintings to Monfreid in Paris. Eventually, they were exhibited in Copenhagen in a joint exhibition with works by the late Vincent Van Gogh. The exhibition was well received. Encouraged, Gauguin arranged to return to Paris with 70 more paintings. Also encouraging his decision to return to Paris was a local doctor's diagnosis of Paul's heart problems. In retrospect, this diagnosis may have been early signs of cardiovascular syphilis.

Dissatisfied, Paul again looked to escape back to Tahiti. He tried to raise funds for the trip, even to the point of accepting charity from friends. In June 1885, Paul left Paris and Europe for the last time on June 28, 1895, and returned to Tahiti.

Disillusioned by his poor reception in Paris, and disdainful of the Parisian art market. He arrived in Papeete in September, 1895, living comfortably as an artist the next six years in or near Papeete. He supported himself with steady sales, and built a reed and thatch house in an affluent area ten miles east of Papeete. He had a horse and visited Papeete almost daily.

He took in a fourteen year old "vahine" named Pahura a Tai.

Pahura a Tai had two children with Paul, a girl who died in infancy and a boy she raised herself. Paul continued associations in Paris. He kept himself informed, subscribing to the Mercure de France, France's most critical journal, and corresponded with French artists, dealers, critics and patrons. In Papeete, Paul increasingly became involved in local Tahitian politics.

He started a monthly publication, Le Sourire: Joural Serieux (The Smile: A Serious Newspaper).

In February of 1900, he became editor of Les Guepes. For this, he received a salary.

In editorials, Paul's pugilistic nature soon took on the governor and French officials, siding with and championing native issues and causes. His disagreements with officials in Tahiti and dissatisfaction with all European influence upon Papeete lead Paul to leave Tahiti, to once again flee his dissatisfaction, just as he had done in Paris, Copenhagen, and Arles.

This time, he targeted the Marquesas Islands, about 900 miles northeast of Tahiti.

Paul arrived in the Marquesas in 1901.

In the previous century, the islands had been decimated by European diseases. In the late 18th century, their population was over 80,000, but by the time Paul arrived in the dawning 20th century, just 4,000.

Catholic missionaries were in control, tapping down public drunkenness and promiscuity, and enrolling all native children in Mission schools.

The French government was centered in a gendarmerie, noted for its malevolence, stupidity, and lack of control over western and Chinese traders who profited by exploiting the natives. Paul made friends with the missionaries, and as for the French officialdom, Paul held out his usual negative critique.

Paul settled near the Catholic mission and was welcomed. His health continued to fail. He began to wear glasses, and changed his medication from laudanum to morphine.

He considered a return to Europe, and to seek treatment in Spain, but was dissuaded in a letter from George Daniel Montfreid dated October 1902, telling Paul to remain in the Pacific. His sickly presence would serve to stir potential negative comments from Paul's enemies, and could only serve to harm Paul's artistic legacy.

Montfreid told Paul that if he stayed in the Pacific, his position in the art world was solid. "You are unassailable as all the great dead; you already belong to the history of art."

Maybe because of Montfreid's advice, or maybe because Paul's illness had eroded his determination and ability to return to Europe, Paul stayed at his island home in the Marquasas. In his last days, Paul experienced weakness and great pain. He died on May 8, 1903, and is buried in Calvary Cemetary, in the town Atuona, on the southern side of the Marquesas Island of Hiva Oa in French Polynesia.

Beyond Linda's studio, her paintings are currently showing at:

Bodega Landmark Gallery Collection,
located in the town of Bodega, west end of town a half block from the Casino, and just across from the General Store and the Bodega Volunteer Fire Department.

Corrick's "Art Trails Gallery,
located in downtown Santa Rosa on 4th Street, just steps from Santa Rosa's reopened Town Square.

6th Street Playhouse, The Red Shoes Gallery
6th Street Playhouse, The Studio Gallery,
52 W. 6th Street, Santa Rosa.

Sister Wendy Beckett,
Feb 25, 1830 - Dec 26, 2018, NYT article

Perhaps the patron saint of art lovers everywhere, Sister Wendy Beckett, a cloistered Carmelite nun, briefly stepped out of monastery life in Quidenham, England (about 90 miles NE of London) and visited the world's greatest museums. With full habit and an unmistakable smile, she introduced millions to the world of great painting.

She said of her notariety, "Nothing is more humiliating than being on television. You make such a fool of yourself." She was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1930. At an early age, she yearned to become a nun and joined the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a teaching order. And, what a teacher she was. Thanks Sister Wendy!

Bentonville, AR
Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art

... IN GRATON, CA ...
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