A TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, SPECTATOR, ECONOMIST AND TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024

A vital re-examination of the trailblazing and controversial artist Paul Gauguin - and the first full biography in over thirty years - written by the award-winning author of I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Nietzsche.

*Gorgeously illustrated with 70 full-colour images*

'Scintillating.' FINANCIAL TIMES
'Immaculate.' NEW STATESMAN
'Phenomenal.' PROSPECT
'A heroic rehabilitation.' THE TIMES

Paul Gauguin is chiefly known as the giant of post-Impressionist painting whose bold colours and compositions rocked the Western art world. It is less well known that he was a stockbroker in Paris and that after the 1882 financial crash he struggled to sustain his artistry, and worked as a tarpaulin salesman in Copenhagen, a canal digger in Panama City, and a journalist exposing the injustices of French colonial rule in Tahiti.

In Wild Thing, the award-winning biographer Sue Prideaux re-examines the adventurous and complicated life of the artist. She illuminates the people, places and ideas that shaped his vision: his privileged upbringing in Peru and rebellious youth in France; the galvanising energy of the Paris art scene; meeting Mette, the woman who he would marry; formative encounters with Vincent van Gogh and August Strindberg; and the ceaseless draw of French Polynesia.

Prideaux conjures Gauguin's visual exuberance, his creative epiphanies, his fierce words and his flaws with acuity and sensitivity. Drawing from a wealth of new material and access to the artist's family, this myth-busting work invites us to see Gauguin anew.

A vital re-examination of the trailblazing and controversial artist Paul Gauguin, by the prize-winning author of I Am Dynamite!

About the Author
Sue Prideaux's first biography Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream (2005) won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Strindberg: A Life (2012) won the Duff Cooper Prize and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche (2018) was awarded the Hawthornden Prize and was The Times Biography of the Year.


Book Information
ISBN 9780571365937
Author Sue Prideaux
Format Hardback
Page Count 416
Imprint Faber & Faber
Publisher Faber & Faber