Paul Gauguin

Known for: Polynesian paintings; Where Do We Come From? What Are We? (1897)

Paul Gauguin abandoned a career as a stockbroker and family life in Paris to pursue painting, first in Brittany and then in Polynesia, where he spent the last decade of his life documenting and aestheticizing Tahitian life in flat, vividly colored works that drew on Japanese prints and medieval stained glass as alternatives to European perspectival tradition. His friendship with van Gogh in Arles ended with van Gogh's breakdown in 1888. His personal conduct in Polynesia — toward women and indigenous people — has made his late work the subject of sustained ethical debate.