French painter, sculptor and printmaker Paul Gauguin was born in Paris in 1848 and died in French Polynesia in 1903. The authors reveal the importance of story and myth to Gauguin, and the inclusion of an extensive series of self-portraits demonstrates how he consciously mythologised his own image, presenting himself to the public as a suffering, Christ-like figure. Gauguin's move to Polynesia has often been represented as a quest for the other, with the artist in the role of explorer. Gauguin's travels and his sometimes-controversial relationships with the subjects of his paintings are discussed, drawing on the latest research and his own writings. Unprecedented in scope, this stunningly illustrated volume features around 50 paintings, as well as works on paper, ceramics, woodcarvings and extracts from Gauguin's beautifully illustrated letters and books.

Sponsor's Foreword

Foreword

Acknowledgements

Paul Gauguin: Navigating the Myth

Belinda Thomson

Gauguin and the Opacity of the Other: The Case of Martinique

Tamar Garb

'Following the Moon': Gauguin's Writing and the Myth of the 'Primitive'

Linda Goddard

Gauguin's Politics

Philippe Dagen

The Last Orientalist: Portrait of the Artist as Mohican

Vincent Gille

Gauguin and Segalen: Exoticism, Myth and the 'Aesthetics of Diversity'

Charles Forsdick

Gauguin: A Very British Reception

Amy Dickson

Plates

Identity and Self-Mythology

Making the Familiar Strange

Landscape and Rural Narrative

Sacred Themes

Fictions of Femininity

Allusive and Elusive Titles

Teller of Tales

Earthly Paradise

Chronology

Notes

Bibliography

Exhibited Works

Lenders and Credits

Index