Wild Thing

A TIMES, DAILY TELEGRAPH, SPECTATOR, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN AND TLS BOOK OF THE YEARLONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025WINNER OF THE POL ROGER DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2025SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024WINNER OF THE FRANCO-BRITISH SOCIETY LITERARY AWARD 2024A 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. 'Scintillating.' FINANCIAL TIMES'Immaculate.' NEW STATESMAN'Phenomenal.' PROSPECT'A heroic rehabilitation.' THE TIMESPaul 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.