Full Bio: Paul Gauguin's Complicated Legacy in Tahiti

Summary

Podcast Summary: All Of It – "Full Bio: Paul Gauguin's Complicated Legacy in Tahiti"

Introduction

In this episode of All Of It, hosted by Alison Stewart, the conversation centers on Paul Gauguin's intricate legacy in Tahiti. Guest Sue Prudho, author of Wild A Life of Paul Gauguin, delves deep into the French artist's life, exploring his artistic journey, personal struggles, and activism within the colonial context of 19th-century Tahiti.

Background on the Episode & Book

Alison Stewart introduces the episode as part of the "Full Bio" series, where authors discuss their comprehensive biographies. Sue Prudho's book, Wild A Life of Paul Gauguin, is highlighted for its extensive research, utilizing historic and primary sources such as Gauguin’s 213-page final work and his son's memoir. Prudho integrates Gauguin's paintings and sculptures to narrate his life, providing a nuanced portrayal that goes beyond previous accounts.

Gauguin's Arrival in Tahiti

Gauguin first arrived in Tahiti in 1891 at the age of 43, seeking authenticity and an escape from his struggling life as a stockbroker-turned-artist. Initially planning to travel to Japan with fellow artist Emile Bernard, circumstances led Gauguin to Tahiti alone after Bernard backed out. Prudho explains:

"He was appointed the first official French artist to Polynesia and promised to buy his paintings. A promise they never kept" (Sue Prudho, [02:43]).

Gauguin's flamboyant appearance—long hair, purple suit, cowboy boots, and a Stetson hat—immediately set him apart from the local Polynesians, who had never seen such Western attire.

Colonial Context in Tahiti

Tahiti had been a French colony for about a decade when Gauguin arrived. The indigenous Tahitians, numbering only a few thousand, were subjected to brutal rule by approximately 400 French soldiers, administrators, and missionaries. Prudho details the oppressive measures taken by the colonizers:

"They smashed all the Polynesian religious temples and artifacts, forbade dancing and nudity, and forced people to wear restrictive clothing" (Sue Prudho, [07:45]).

Additionally, Chinese laborers were brought in to work on agricultural projects like sugar cane cultivation, though these efforts largely failed, leading many to leave for opportunities like the Panama Canal or become storekeepers, often facing resentment from the local population.

Gauguin's Art and Reception

As the official artist, Gauguin was commissioned to paint a portrait of Suzanne Bainbridge, a local woman. However, his unconventional style was poorly received locally—they deemed his work inferior and suspected him of being a spy rather than a genuine artist. Despite this initial rejection, Gauguin persisted in his artistic endeavors, moving to the countryside to immerse himself in Polynesian life. Prudho notes:

"He became known as the man who Makes Men because Polynesia didn't have a tradition of painting. They were captivated by his work, which depicted their daily lives authentically" (Sue Prudho, [08:29]).

Controversies and Challenges

Gauguin's artwork, particularly Teorania Maria Hail Mary (1891), sparked scandal in Paris for depicting the holy family with Polynesian features:

"When it was shown in Paris, it was uproarious and scandalous... It wasn't until 1951 that a papal encyclical made it permissible to represent such imagery" (Sue Prudho, [10:39]).

Despite praise from fellow artists like Degas, who dubbed him "the Magician," Gauguin's work struggled to gain widespread acceptance amidst the dominance of Impressionism.

Health Issues and Incident in Brittany

Gauguin's personal life was tumultuous, marked by his relationship with Anna the Javanese. Their summer holiday in Brittany ended violently when local fishermen attacked Gauguin for their unconventional presence:

"His ankle was splintered and his shattered shin bone stuck out through the skin. He always walked with a stick afterwards" (Sue Prudho, [17:53]).

This injury led to chronic health issues, including an open wound that never healed properly, fostering rumors of syphilis. The incident profoundly affected Gauguin's physical well-being and his resolve to never return to France.

Gauguin's Activism and Legacy

Beyond his artistic pursuits, Gauguin became an outspoken advocate for indigenous rights in French Polynesia. He actively opposed the corruption within the local government and the oppressive policies enforced by missionaries like Bishop Martin. Prudho recounts Gauguin's efforts to restore traditional Polynesian culture:

"He built a traditional communal house, the maison de Jouyre, and championed the local people's right to sing, dance, and live authentically" (Sue Prudho, [21:20]).

Gauguin's activism made him both a hero to the Polynesian community and an enemy to the French colonial authorities. His confrontations with Bishop Martin culminated in legal battles, further tarnishing his relationship with the French administration.

Authenticity and Cultural Representation

A significant discussion revolves around Gauguin's representation of Polynesian culture. While some criticize his work as cultural appropriation, Prudho argues that:

"He painted what he saw, showing Polynesian people in their authentic daily lives rather than romanticized or exoticized forms prevalent in earlier Western art" (Sue Prudho, [15:29]).

Gauguin's approach contrasted sharply with contemporaries who often projected European ideals onto their depictions of non-Western subjects.

Death and Aftermath

Paul Gauguin died in 1903 under disputed circumstances. While some theories suggest he committed suicide after facing legal troubles, Prudho presents an alternative view:

"The medically qualified men on the island believed that Gauguin's heart gave out, possibly triggered by the stress of his legal battles and his lingering physical injuries" (Sue Prudho, [27:24]).

After his death, Bishop Martin controversially took Gauguin's body for a Catholic burial, disregarding his Polynesian blood brother's wishes for a communal burial, thereby cementing his antagonistic relationship with the Church.

Conclusion

Gauguin's life in Tahiti was a complex interplay of artistic pursuit, personal turmoil, and socio-political activism. Sue Prudho's Wild A Life of Paul Gauguin provides a multifaceted view of the artist, highlighting his quest for authenticity and his efforts to champion indigenous rights amidst colonial oppression. This episode of All Of It offers listeners a deep dive into Gauguin's legacy, encouraging a nuanced understanding of his contributions and controversies within the broader tapestry of cultural history.

Notable Quotes

• Sue Prudho: "He was the first official French artist to Polynesia and promised to buy his paintings. A promise they never kept." ([02:43])

• Alison Stewart: "He had long hair on the voyage, and he disembarked wearing a purple suit, Buffalo Bill, cowboy boots and a Stetson hat. That was a look." ([03:58])

• Sue Prudho: "He became known as the man who Makes Men because Polynesia didn't have a tradition of painting." ([08:29])

• Sue Prudho: "He was fighting for social justice for the Polynesian people. That, I think, is an interpretation of authenticity." ([29:08])

Further Engagement

Listeners are encouraged to visit All Of It's Instagram @ollofynyc for more images of Gauguin and to explore the curated art list shared by Alison Stewart. Upcoming episodes promise insightful discussions, including a feature on James Baldwin by Nicholas Boggs.

Transcript

[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Tomorrow is going to be a great show. Director Spike Lee will be one of our guests. His new film is highest to lowest. It's a reimagining of a 1963 Akira Kurosawa film. It opens in theaters on Friday. But first, Spike will join us for a preview and we're going to talk about a great new play called well, I'll let you go. It's from playwright Bubba Wyler and it's about a grieving woman who lost her husband who as it turns out, she may not have known at all. Bubba joins us along with stars Quincy Tyler Bernstein and Michael Chernis. Plus, we'll talk about a new thriller called the Knife. It's with Nnamdi Asamwa who also directed and co wrote it. He joins us to discuss along with co writer Mark Duplass. We got a big Thursday planned. That isn't our future. Now let's get this hour started with our final full bio conversation about the life of Paul Gauguin. Full bio is our book series where we spend a few days with the author of a deeply researched biography to get a fuller understanding of the subject. The book we are discussing is a profile of a 19th century self taught French artist. It's called Wild A Life of Paul Gauguin by by Sue Prudho. For her book, Prudhoe used historic and primary sources, including a recently discovered 213 page work Gauguin completed in his final years and a memoir written by his son. She also used Gauguin's paintings and sculptures to help narrate what's going on in his life. You can see some of those on our Instagram llyc. We've already covered the controversy around Gauguin and his early life as a fatherless child in Peru and his adult life as a stockbroker turned struggling artist. You can list to those on our show page. We turn now to Gauguin's time in Haiti, to Haiti, Tahiti, excuse me, a place where he was looking for authenticity and where he could afford to live. He was broke and his wife left him. She took his five children and split to Copenhagen in his first or he first arrived in Tahiti in 1891 and stayed there for at least two years before returning to France to sell his paintings. The paintings are some of his most famous work, but not at the time. Here's Sue Prudho, the author of Wild A Life of Paul Gauguin. Sue, when did Paul Gauguin first Visit Tahiti?

[Sue Prudho]

Ah, yes, he visited Tahiti in 1891. He was 43. And why Tahiti? Well, France was paying people to go out and live in the colonies, and Gauguin thought this was a very good idea. Japan was, in fact, his first choice. He was fascinated by Japanese art, as we've said. But he was planning to go to travel with another artist called Emile Bernard. And Bernard didn't want to go to Japan. He'd been reading up on Tahiti and wanted to go there basically for sunset and sex. But Gauguin wasn't keen because there really wasn't much culture as far as he could see. But he gave in. And in fact, the Arts Ministry appointed Gauguin the first official French artist to Polynesia and promised to buy his paintings. A promise they never kept, of course. And the stupid thing was that Emile Bernard backed out at the last minute. And so Gauguin went to Tahiti alone. As I said, he was 43. He had let his hair grow long on the voyage, and he disembarked wearing a purple suit, Buffalo bill, cowboy boots and a Stetson hat.

[Alison Stewart]

That's a look.

[Sue Prudho]

He'd seen Buffalo Bill in Paris and was absolutely entranced by the whole thing. And he had long hair. He'd let his hair grow during the voyage. And the Tahitians never seen anything like this. And they said, mahu, mahu, mahu. And they giggled. The most accurate translation of the word mahu is man. Woman was a man who wore women's clothing and lived as a women or as a woman. They weren't necessarily gay or straight. They just had their own special position in Polynesian society. But the west, the Polynesians had never seen a Western mahu before, so they were riveted at that time, Polynesia had been a French colony for about 10 years. And the Frenchmen, of course, were either administrators wearing smart tropical suits or soldiers and gendarmes in uniform. So Gauguin really stood out, and he didn't realize why.

[Alison Stewart]

I wanted to ask you a little bit about Tahiti at the time, in the 19th century, there were the indigenous people, the French colonizers and the Chinese. So please forgive me, but when did the French take control?

[Sue Prudho]

Well, they took control. 1880, something. Basically, it's 11 years before Gauguin arrives, and he arrives in 91. So we can work it out from there. But actually, the first, it was a sort of. It was French colony, but with a Tahitian king. But the first night that Gauguin arrived, the Taetian king, King Pomare, V died. And so actually, the first morning when Gauguin woke up, he was woken up by these cannons. He had a terrible hangover because he had been partying the night before. When he arrived, he woke up with these awful cannons. And he thought, gosh, do they start every morning with cannons in Tahiti? Not at all. It was the king. And so he. One of his early paintings, he calls it the King's End. It's a very strange painting. It's much more symbolic than literal or realist because, I mean, King Pomare just naturally kept his head to the end of his life. But this is more like a picture of John the Baptist, the king's head, beheaded, really, on a platter. And I wonder if maybe Gauguin felt it symbolized the ghastly fate of Pomare's people, the Tahitians, who really were sacrificed to French colonial greed.

[Alison Stewart]

That was my question.

[Unknown]

What happened to the indigenous people?

[Sue Prudho]

Well, indeed, there were only a few thousand of them on the islands, you see, of Tahiti. And they were ruled over with great brutality by about 400 soldiers and administrators, not to mention the missionaries. And they too were brutal. And they smashed all the Polynesian religious temples and artifacts and they destroyed their culture. They forbade dancing and nudity and making free love. And they forced people to wear ridiculous head to toe clothes, which is stupid in that climate. Missionary dresses known as Mother Hubbards, sort of from neck to floor that concealed every inch of sinful flesh. And they kind of terrorized them with hellfire evangelism, really. So they were most, most oppressed.

[Unknown]

And then the Chinese were brought in to provide labor.

[Sue Prudho]

They were to provide agricultural labor, I think it was. They thought that they would be able to have good sugar cane crops on Tahiti, but it doesn't grow there. And so the, the Chinese, well, some, ha ha, were shipped off to dig the Panama Canal, of course, but some enterprising ones did what a lot of enterprising Chinese do was they became storekeepers, you know, general stores, that sort of thing. Not, not very many of them. They were very resented because they didn't integrate, because rarely they were just making money from the stores so that they could go back to China and, you know, get by themselves a splendid tomb, you know, because from their religion that was, you know, what they should do.

[Alison Stewart]

So where did Paul Gauguin fit into this ecosystem that we've just described?

[Sue Prudho]

Yeah, well, well, obviously he started in Papeete, and because, because he was the official artist, he was commissioned to paint a portrait of a rather important local Woman called Suzanne Bainbridge. But of course, being Gauguin wasn't the sort of flattering portrait they expected. After that, nobody asked him to paint anything at all. In fact, they thought the picture so bad it was put away in a cupboard. And they thought he couldn't possibly be a painter, but he must be a spy sent from Paris to report on them. So they shunned him. And he was very happy with that. He didn't want to live in the capital, you know, which was basically a French provincial town, but he wanted to live out in the country. And unlike the other Frenchmen, he took Polynesian lessons, he wanted to speak the language. And he moved out of the claustrophobic capital, down the coast to live the authentic life. He wanted to live with the locals as a local. But this of course, was not as easy as he imagined. There weren't exactly supermarkets around and you know, when local bought him food to share, he was too proud to accept. But eventually it worked and he became known as the man who Makes Men. Because Polynesia didn't have a culture of painting. Their arts were carving and tattooing and dancing and textiles. But they hadn't seen paintings. But it's quite interesting because they immediately, you know, they could immediately could read it. They understood what he was put, what he was putting on the canvas. So they called him the man who Makes Men. And his first lovely, lovely lady came to see him and he painted a lovely portrait of her called the Woman with the Flower. And after that people weren't self conscious. He took his easel out and painted them sort of doing their everyday thing and they didn't mind at all. That was fine.

[Alison Stewart]

When he sent his paintings back to Europe, how were they received?

[Sue Prudho]

Well, the painter Degas got it at once and he called Gauguin the Magician. Gauguin called Cezanne the Magician. And Degas called Gauguin the Magician. And he bought his paintings and he studied them and he lived with them and he absolutely adored them. But otherwise they were absolutely, let's say, unappreciated. People were in love with Impressionism. It was nice. And one of the first major paintings that Gauguin made out in Polynesia was called Teorania Maria Hail Mary 1891. And it shows a Polynesian Mary carrying a Polynesian Christ child and their halos merge and there are Polynesian bare breasted girls, vahines bringing tributes rather than the three wise men and so on and so forth. And when it was shown in Paris, it was uproar, it was scandalous. To show the holy family with brown skin, which is pretty stupid if you think about where they came from. And believe it or not, I researched this, and it wasn't until 1951 that a papal encyclical made it permissible to represent such a thing. And so, no. So Gauguin, you know, raged against the church and raged against racism.

[Alison Stewart]

He wrote sort of a. Sort of a version of what he was experiencing, called. Was it Noa Noah? Yes, in 1893. First of all, what was the purpose of Noa Noah? And I'm curious if you found it. Was it an accurate description of what was going on in Tahiti, or was it a Paul Gauguin description?

[Sue Prudho]

No, it was really. He went. He went. After a couple of years, he went back. He had 100 paintings to show. So he went back and good old Degas organized the exhibition. Not a success. People, you know, nobody bought anything. And that was where Hail Mary, Teorania Maria, of course, such a scandal. And so to make people comprehend this exhibition, Gauguin wrote. No, no telling. It was really telling Polynesian stories and legends. It was, you know, sort of fairy tales and romantic things illustrated. And at the same time, he. He made his studio. He called it the Studio of the South Seas. And he kept open house. He painted it bright, bright yellow. He even painted the glass in the windows yellow. And he played Polynesian music, and he demonstrated Polynesian dancing and storytelling and food and so on and so forth. And it was really just Noah. Noah was to, you know, to make people understand. And he made a series of Noah Noah woodcuts as well. But actually, the only people who really paid attention to him were people who couldn't afford to buy his paintings. It was. The young artists thought it was great, but, you know, no profit came of it.

[Unknown]

My guest is Sue Prudho. We're talking about her book Wild Thing A Life of Paul Gauguin. It's our choice for full bio. Your book was described in the New York Times as not a whitewash of Gauguin's legacy. Instead, Prideau fills it with more details. In it, he had interactions with indigenous girls, some with parental approval. I personally think people should read the book to understand its nuances, and then they can decide for themselves about whether they think it's appropriate, whatever their level is.

[Sue Prudho]

I agree.

[Unknown]

How would you describe how Gauguin's interactions with the indigenous people made it into his art, however he saw it?

[Sue Prudho]

Oh, you're talking about. You're asking rarely about colonialism and cultural appropriation.

[Alison Stewart]

Maybe Maybe not. I'm curious what you think.

[Sue Prudho]

No, I mean, that's one of the charges against him. Colonialism and cultural appropriation.

[Alison Stewart]

Or was he choosing to do. It's funny because it makes me wonder when I was been thinking about this all week. I read your book and I've been thinking about it all week and I've been thinking, well, maybe not. Maybe this is what he thought was authentic. But then again, we have to think, well, we're watching it through his male gaze. His male white gaze, right?

[Sue Prudho]

Yes, yes, yes. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. There are several points here, really. Well, of course, if you're talking about cultural appropriation, there was nothing for him to appropriate because there was drawing or painting on the island. So what he does, in fact is he paints what's in front of him. He doesn't romanticize. It's not tourist art. He doesn't exoticize. He's painting what's in front of him. And if you go out there, you'll see he is painting what's in front of him. This contrasts with sort of earlier artists like Delacroix and Ingres, who, when they painted exotic people, you know, North Africa or Turkey or whatever, they basically painted the people as sort of brown washed European bodies, you know, hourglass figures, tiny waists, elegant limbs, you know, the European ideal just kind of colored up a bit. But if you look at Gauguin's paintings, a, he shows them going about their business, day to day stuff, but he shows them actually as they are and the physiques of working people, broad shoulders, strong bodies, not terrifically defined waists, big spreading feet because they don't wear shoes. So it's not tourist art. And he shows a colony in transition in terms of colonial occupation. Sometimes in his landscapes. This wonderful landscape called Mata Mua, which is totally idyllic. You know, just Polynesian girls sitting in jungle. But more often than not, I'm thinking of horses on the beach and things like that. He's showing contemporary reality, painting individuals, real situations, real people, not propaganda. Does that answer your question?

[Unknown]

Absolutely.

[Alison Stewart]

I want to describe.

[Unknown]

I want for people to understand that.

[Alison Stewart]

He had a very bad beating at one point, and I believe it was on the French coast.

[Sue Prudho]

Yes, that's right. That's right, yeah.

[Alison Stewart]

And it really affected the rest of his life. Yes, he wasn't treated particularly well by the courts. How important was that sort of street fight in his life?

[Sue Prudho]

Well, it was important. It was very important. We talked about when he came over to Paris after two years in Tahiti and he had the exhibition and he had the NOAA Noah. He wrote the NOAA Noah catalog to make people understand. And he was giving lessons in art school to make money. And one of the models there was, she was known as Anna the Javanese. I don't know if what her real name was actually, I don't think anyone knows. She'd come, she was Javanese. She'd been trafficked to Paris to be a maid to an opera singer. But she was pretty feisty and she soon put pay to that. She became a model in an art school. Gauguin took her down to Brittany for a summer holiday together. Anna was very colorful and she went nowhere without her parrot and her tame monkey. And down in Brittany, which was very, very rural, very old fashioned really, the sight of the white painter out walking with the black girl and her exotic pets was too much for the local fishermen. And they set on Gauguin, nearly kicked him to death with their wooden clogs. In fact, his ankle was splintered and his shattered shin bone stuck out through the skin. And it was an injury actually that he would never recover from. He always walked with a stick afterwards. And of course when he got back to Tahiti, it wasn't totally healed. And the doctors there, this is where the legend, this contributes greatly to the legend of Gauguin's syphilis because the wound never healed. It kept suppurating but the doctors out in Tahiti, well, syphilis was rife. So they knew syphilis very well. They diagnosed eczema with erysipelas. And this was aggravated by a fly that they called the. No, no fly out there. And this fly, actually, funnily enough, when I went out, their beaches are still closed because of the fly, because it fastens on any sort of open wound and it eats and eats and infects and you can't get rid of it. You, they can now, I mean, but you know, it would be complicated. And of course in Gauguin's day you couldn't. And so this open wound actually never healed on his leg, which was absolute hell on earth. And at the end of that visit to Paris, that's when he goes back to Tahiti, determined I'm never going to go back to France again. You know, this is how they treat.

[Alison Stewart]

Me when we come back. Gauguin's final days. This is all of it from wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. Let's get back into our full bio conversation with Sue Prudho, the author of Wild A Life of Paul Gauguin. We pick up with Gauguin's activism in French Polynesia.

[Unknown]

In the later years of his life. He took on corruption in the Polynesian government. What did he see as the problem? How was he going to help solve it?

[Sue Prudho]

Well, he. He saw. He saw the corruption in Tahiti. He saw the oppression of the indigenous people, the corruption, the injustice, the taking bribes, et cetera, et cetera. And he wrote to a local newspaper in Tahiti, you know, an indignant letter. And they took him on as if you like, a political correspondent. And so he. He wrote these wonderful sort of satirical articles about the local officials, illustrating them cruelly, as you can imagine. And he also. Actually, he wrote to Paris exposing the injustices and the corruption. Anyway, eventually the governor of Tahiti was so fed up that he decided that he would sue Gauguin for libel. And Gauguin knew that he would never win in the local court. And so, in fact, he fled. Yes, he started to fight for indigenous rights in the newspapers. He exposed the corruption of the governor, who threatened a libel suit. Gauguin knew he had no chance of winning, so he fled, in fact, to a tiny island 900 miles away called Hivaoa, which was also a French colony. And on arrival in 1901, he only has three years to live, really. Two and a half more years to live. On arrival, he was amazed. He was mobbed like a celebrity, but not for his painting and not. But it was for his crusading journalism. They'd all read his articles and they were so thrilled that, you know, he fought for them. And as he walked down the only street in Hivara, he was followed by a crowd at the general store. He entertained everyone to tea and cakes, and he decided that he would stay there. And everything on Hiva Oa was run by the Roman Catholic bishop, Father Martin. If Gauguin went to church every day, he'd get his plot of land to build a house. It took 11 days, and he never set foot in the bishop's church again. In fact, they became deadly enemies as Gauguin set about championing the local people and restoring the old ways. And he started, very provocatively, by building a maison de Jouyre, a traditional communal house that had been banned by the missionaries. A gathering place for the locals who could behave as they had in the old days before Christianity. They could sing and dance and drink and flirt and maybe pair up for a little sex if they felt so inclined. And so the islanders loved him. He was invited to exchange names, which was the highest honor. It's like becoming a blood brother. When you exchange names, you exchange souls, and you hold your property in common, including your wives. The French, of course, hated him, particularly Bishop Martin, who was a terrible puritan, who'd forbidden, you know, the usual things, nudity, polyandry, tattooing, dancing. But everyone knew that Bishop Martin had a 15 year old mistress called Therese. And Gauguin carved two figures, two sort of four foot figures of the bishop and his mistress. And he set them up in his garden. And so everyone giggled as they went by. And you can imagine the bishop's fury. And he. Yes, he's really his greatest. Well, he continued his work as the people's champion. A murder occurred and the wrong man was accused, plainly because he was black. And Gauguin forten won the case and people even wrote to him from other islands to right their wrongs. But his greatest legal victory really was over the bishop, because Bishop Martin compelled all the children, boys and girls, to attend French Catholic boarding school to the age of 14. And they were taught only in French. And the aim was to erase the Polynesian language, culture, family structure and national identity in one generation. So the children were distraught, of course. But Gauguin discovered a minor French law that only children living within 4 km of a school need attended. So of course, mass relocation ensued and language and culture and family unity survived. And Gauguin became more popular than ever. And the governor reported back to Paris. He wrote, more or less, quote, more or less. Gauguin was a defender of native vices, a subverter of the rule of law and a dangerous anarchist.

[Alison Stewart]

Oh, he must love that.

[Sue Prudho]

Well, he did. Yes, exactly. But then that. Really, then all hell broke loose. When. When Gauguin then accused a gendarme on a nearby island of accepting bribes, the governor responded with a charge of libel again. This time the case was heard by the local French magistrate and Gauguin was found guilty, fine 500 pranks and sentenced to three months in prison. In fact, barely a year later, the case would be re examined and Gauguin's accusations found to be correct. But by that time he was dead.

[Alison Stewart]

He died in 1903.

[Sue Prudho]

He did.

[Alison Stewart]

Paul Gauguin died 1903.

[Sue Prudho]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And actually there's a theory that Gauguin committed suicide after this sentence to the fine and the prison that unable to pay the fine, he took an overdose of morphine. And we'll never know for sure. But the two medically qualified men on the island, both doctors, both believed that Gauguin's heart in fact gave out and this seems perfectly feasible to me. His father had died of heart disease, age 34, his mother at 41. Gauguin has suffered at least two heart attacks. He was 54, older than both his parents, really. And, well, you know, it's not impossible that the prospect of prison and a fine he couldn't pay brought on the fatal attack. But there's a sort of postscript to this, which is that when his corpse was discovered by his Polynesian blood brother, Tioque, he planned to bury him next day in the common cemetery for Polynesian people. But early next morning, Bishop Martin snatched Gauguin's body away to be buried in the Catholic cemetery to claim his soul for the Catholic Church. And he reported to the French authorities of, you know, the sudden death of a fellow called Gauguin, a contemptible individual, a reputed artist, but an enemy of God and everything that is decent. Hmm. Not very nice.

[Alison Stewart]

Paul Gauguin believed in authenticity.

[Sue Prudho]

Yes.

[Unknown]

What did that mean to him?

[Sue Prudho]

What did that mean to him? That's a very good question, isn't it? Well, authenticity. He was obviously, obviously, a great artist. Obviously, his art was authentic because it was his very own. He was authentic. He was dedicated to his art, his loves, his children. He was obviously a very magnetic personality, had lots of charisma, pugilistic. And he was, yes, authentically, he was a man of great integrity, according to his own rather eccentric ideals. And authentic is a word he used very often. He hated pretense, hypocrisy. He was prepared to suffer a great deal for his art and indeed, prepare to suffer personally for social justice for the Polynesian people. That, I think, is an interpretation of authenticity. And he never ducked issues, you know, whatever life threw at him, he took it on at full throttle enough. And for me, you know, to research and write his life, it's been a great learning curve and a great, terrific adventure. Yeah, I think maybe authenticity, the idea. You can say it. I can say it as a scholar, and he could say it about his life, that history and art and life are not there to be comforting or to be condemned. They're there to be understood.

[Unknown]

The name of the book is Wild, A Life of Paul Gauguin. It is by my guest, Sue Prudhoe. Sue, thank you for spending so much time with us.

[Sue Prudho]

Thank you so much, Alison. It's been an honor and a great, great pleasure. Thank you.

[Alison Stewart]

Thanks again to Sue Prudho. Check out our Instagram for more images of Gauguin that I took at the Met. Remember, you can always download our 100 pieces of art you should see in New York City. We put out a curated list on Instagram. I've been doing it at the Met all summer long and it's just a whole lot of fun. Head to Instagram. Oflofynyc Full Bio is post produced by Jordan Loff, engineered by Jason Isaac, and written by me. Up next on Full Bio, James Baldwin by Nicholas Boggs. The first biography of the writer in 30 years and let me tell you, it is so good morning.

[Sue Prudho]

One sausage McMuffin with eggplace.

[Unknown]

Okay, your total is.

[Sue Prudho]

Wait, let's negotiate. How's about you throw in hash browns for a dollar?

[Unknown]

Well, yes sir. That price is already a do.

Take it or leave it.

Take it, I guess. Buy one, add one for a dollar on sausage McMuffin with egg, hash browns and more with McValue. Most locations open 5am or earlier. Price and participation may vary. Limited time only. Valid for item of equal or less.

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