Written alongside the resurfacing of Paul Gauguin’s memoir and will, Sue Prideaux chronicles the controversial genius’ life in “Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin.” Having previously authored biographies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Edvard Munch and August Strindberg, Prideaux is comfortable synthesizing historical fact, criticism and a decades-long narrative. This well-researched account of Gauguin’s life is supplemented by prints of the French artist’s sketches, sculptures and paintings — displaying the beautiful intimacy of his canvases and the haunting darkness of his innovative wood-carvings.
Prideaux seeks to complicate the narrative around an artist she describes as “misunderstood,” who others label as a colonizer. Gauguin’s revered status in art history is extensive: Hailed as the father of Primitivism and an apostle of Symbolism, the Post-Impressionist’s influence is undeniable. Yet his role in fetishizing Polynesian natives and perpetuating French colonialism is a topic that museum exhibitions and the artist’s admirers alike still grapple with. The author does not shy away from this discussion, but clearly seeks to sanitize — or at least add ambiguity to — his sullied legacy.
After spending his early childhood in Peru, Gauguin felt out of place upon immigrating to France. This alienation strongly informed his creative choices, particularly his fascination with foreign artwork and forms. Gauguin’s lifelong compulsion toward the the distant, which he perceived as exotic, culminated in him spending the last years of his life in Tahiti, painting and living among the island’s inhabitants.
Prideaux contributes to the artist’s canon by delving into how Gauguin resisted colonial powers in Polynesia, legally representing natives and starting a newspaper to champion their causes. However, these efforts are fundamentally overshadowed by his relationships with teenage Tahitians. This exploitation is inescapable when viewing Gauguin, as his work during this period features predominantly naked, idealized depictions of native women and girls.
Prideaux’s writing frames this fixation as admiration, rather than a fetishistic obsession. In reality, Gauguin’s artistic motivations combine both an earnest curiosity and a perverted romanticization of Polynesian culture and people. When faced with the artist’s work in a museum, we grapple with these two conflicting notions and come away with our own perspectives. But Prideaux’s writing nudges us — perhaps as a response to recent reevaluation of the artist’s legacy — to view him in an undeservedly positive light.
The author’s inability to hide her admiration for Gauguin diminishes the entire reading experience. By rationalizing the artist’s deplorable behavior abroad and indulging his messianic self-descriptions and self-serving sufferings, Prideaux comes across as Gauguin’s cheerleader rather than his biographer. Her sycophantic writing begs the question: Does this book deepen our collective understanding of this painter’s life and works, or just seek to salvage his image?
In chronicling Gauguin’s life, Prideaux paints a realistic picture through an idealized filter. The narrator is not entirely unreliable, but she is also not unbiased. Though Prideaux fawns over the artist’s more admirable traits and palliates his worst ones — rationalizing Gauguin’s behavior in Polynesia and waving away his failures as a father — she never paints the artist in black and white.
The author ultimately creates an ambiguous picture of Gauguin’s persona, offering clear insight into one of the most dynamic periods of art history. From the painter’s innovative school at Pont-Aven to his frayed relationship with Vincent Van Gogh — including Gauguin’s interactions with masters such as Camille Pissarro and Edgar Degas — Prideaux covers a breadth of key episodes in the progression of Post-Impressionism.
Unfortunately, these moments are bogged down by long historical diatribes that come across more as self-absorbed displays of Prideaux’s research than as something meant to truly enlighten the reader. Enjoyment of this biography heavily depends on the reader’s interest in the time period, as expansive sections of the book offer no forward movement in the artist’s life, instead focusing on historical background and concurrent events.
Still, Prideaux provides nuanced analysis of the artist’s work, which is in conversation with the greater world of art critique. This examination is key to understanding the importance of Gauguin’s contributions to modern art. Likewise, the author masterfully verbalizes Gauguin’s integral struggle of seeking some new frontier — a key motif throughout the painter’s life. By fully realizing this idea and illustrating its psychological impact on her subject, Prideaux allows readers to gain a deeper appreciation of Gauguin’s oeuvre.
Whether Prideaux succeeded in complicating the narrative of an already complex figure is unclear. This profile of the Post-Impressionist iconoclast offers in-depth research and mature art critique but shies away from properly condemning Gauguin’s colonial sins. While it is difficult to grapple with the dissonance of admiring a deeply flawed artist’s work, “Wild Thing” offers a broader understanding of Gauguin’s life and of his place in the canon of modern art.
Daily Arts Writer Lorenzo Norbis can be reached at lnorbis@umich.edu.
