Over on my booktube channel (Hannah's Books), I shared this book in my description of exciting books forthcoming in May. Link to the particular discussion: https://youtu.be/4zoXuMKGD2A?si=XgsVrDJwU1D1lfVu&t=452

A New Version of an Artist’s Difficult Life: Paul Gauguin
Sue Prideaux, Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2025). Hardcover: $39.99. 416pp. ISBN: 978-1-324-02042-4.
*****
A “portrait of the misunderstood French Post-Impressionist artist. Paul Gauguin’s legend as a transgressive genius arises as much from his biography as his aesthetically daring Polynesian paintings. Gauguin is chiefly known for his pictures that eschewed convention, to celebrate the beauty of an indigenous people and their culture. In this gorgeously illustrated, myth-busting work, Sue Prideaux reveals that while Gauguin was a complicated man, his scandalous reputation is largely undeserved. Self-taught, Gauguin became a towering artist in his brief life, not just in painting but in ceramics and graphics. He fled the bustle of Paris for the beauty of Tahiti, where he lived simply and worked consistently to expose the tragic results of French Colonialism. Gauguin fought for the rights of Indigenous people, exposing French injustices and corruption in the local newspaper and acting as advocate for the Tahitian people in the French colonial courts. His unconventional career and bold, breathtaking art influenced not only Vincent van Gogh, but Matisse and Picasso… Upends much of what we thought we knew about Gauguin through new primary research, including the resurfaced manuscript of Gauguin’s most important writing, the untranslated memoir of Gauguin’s son, and a sample of Gauguin’s teeth that disproves the pernicious myth of his syphilis. In the first full biography of Paul Gauguin in thirty years, Sue Prideaux illuminates the extraordinary oeuvre of a visionary artist vital to the French avant-garde.”
The first point that drew my attention was just how they figured out Gauguin did not have syphilis. This is first addressed in the “Preface”. “Forensic examination by the Human Genome Project at Cambridge proved the teeth were Gauguin’s. Further tests carried out for cadmium, mercury and arsenic, the standard treatment for syphilis at the time. All leave mineral traces in the teeth and Gauguin’s teeth showed no trace of any of them”. In contrast, no attempt is made to disprove that Theo van Gogh suffered from syphilis, which led to his death shortly after Vincent (175). Later in the narrative there is a note that the doctor in Papeete’s hospital who treated Gauguin diagnosed him with “eczema complicated by erysipelas and with rupture of the little varicose veins”. Instead of being a villain who infected his subjects with syphilis, Gauguin is presented as a type of Thoreau who “built himself a hut of traditional materials… on the tiny island of Hiva Oa” before he died in 1903. This site of the hut was where in 2000 Gauguin’s four teeth were found, allowing for the testing (288). This is a great way to explain these facts. I feel as if I already know more about Gauguin than I did before. Knowing the truth about artists’ lives is very important for somebody with the ambition to also be an artist because it helps to understand what worked in the past to achieve eventual greatness.
The next thing that drew my attention are they many color illustrations of Gauguin’s paintings included in this book. I have seen a few of his drawings of native women, but have not seen the vast variety of what he created. For example, commonly-seen pieces show women in nature, while “Nevermore” (1897) shows a woman inside a public house, with dark shading in contrast with typical bright colors (296). Another novelty is Gauguin’s “Self-Portray (Near Golgotha) (1896). The author explains that the two thieves in the background, and the blank look in Gauguin’s face reflect his despair over developing “conjunctivitis in both eyes” that led to “difficulties seeing”. This disease seems to have been cured, but then the man from whom he purchased the land for his hut died, and his heir demanded he “move out” (298-9). As I prepare to move out of my tiny house after 8 years in semi-retirement, this note strikes a chord. I am moving for a good job, and will probably sell this house. But being forced out because of a land-dispute without an artistic job ahead, or a payment sounds terrifying. He took a spectacular risk of borrowing “1,000 francs at 10 per cent interest, repayable within the year” to buy “two and a half acres” of neighboring land. He decided to this time build a sound house, instead of merely a hut with a “plaited roof” that could be blown away by “a gust of wind” or walls that could be drenched “between the bamboos” (299). Obviously, his ambitious project failed when he soon owed “1,500 francs” but had no completed house because the cost of construction outstripped what he could borrow. And meanwhile his agent cancelled their contract. Though he still had a second agent, who had sold “1,035… for works”. He tried finding a patron, or winning a grant from the French state. Very little materialized from these hopes, as he was getting sicker, and was escaping into philosophical or theological writings. Apparently, he “suffered a series of heart attacks”, while drawing darker paintings of girls in mythic (apple-picking) settings (305). Then, he could not even afford “canvas” (306).
There is a curious photo of a girl with a fan, and echoing drawing from 1902 of the same subject. The photo was taken by “Louis Grelet, a Swiss-born professional photographer who was visiting the island at the time” (343). It seems there were several similar images circling in photos and paintings. Otherwise, I would be confused why Gauguin was not taking his own photos.
I usually dislike simplified art. But Van Gogh and Gauguin have always appealed to my desire to see a combination of quality-painting and emotional intensity. For example, “Clovis Asleep” (1884) shows a realistic container with intricately-painted details, but the girl in front of it is made with simple strokes. The girl is sleeping, so this lack of detail seems to evoke her unconsciousness (76). Or “Mette in Evening Dress” (1884): this is as elegant as any classical painter would have executed this theme, and yet it is simple, with thick daggered lines cutting across patches of paint (73). It seems simple, but replicating this combination of simplicity and complexity, with symbolic and emotional significance is very difficult in practice. Many have copied such paintings identically, but designing new ideas of this sort takes more than formulaic mimicry.
This is a great book that introduces readers to a biography of an artist in a way that makes it seem never-before-heard-of. Any library would benefit from adding it to their collection.
Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Spring 2025 issue: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-spring-2025

I enjoy art, particularly the Impressionists, but when I saw this on the Women’s Prize for Nonfiction longlist (which I am reading in full), I wasn’t very enthusiastic, given the heaps of attention for famous dead white men. But once I started reading, I struggled to put this down. The writing is SO good. I was immediately fully absorbed and stayed that way throughout. I also appreciate the inclusion of a number of Gauguin’s paintings alongside the discussion of them in the text. My only quibble is there are two sections in the last 100 pages which are not well integrated into the book and I feel those edges could have been smoothed out a bit. Otherwise, absolutely fantastic.

Sue Prideaux’s new biography of Gauguin, “Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin” (W.W. Norton & Company, 2025), is revelatory and overflows with newly discovered research from the past ten years. Prideaux’s excavation of several primary research documents, including Gauguin’s long-lost manuscript detailing the last two years of his life, discovered in 2020, and the Wildenstein Plattner Institute’s release of his final oeuvre from 1891-1903 in 2021, contributes to her reexamination of Gauguin.

While Prideaux is not looking to excuse him, her thorough and expansive exploration contextualizes the previously understood mythology of Paul Gauguin. For example, part of the “Gauguin is one of the bad boys of the art world mythology’ is his death from syphilis. However, four teeth unearthed in a well on the Marquesas Islands in 2007 did not show evidence of mercury upon forensic examination. Of course, this could mean either that Gauguin did not have syphilis or that he was not treated for it.

One of my favorite parts of the book was learning about Gauguin’s maternal grandmother, Flora Tristan. A writer, feminist, socialist, and activist, Tristan believed in workers’ rights and the link between feminism and socialism. A memorial to her remains in Bordeaux, France, today.

Part detective story, part history book, part art history who-knows-who, with a dollop of feminist theory, politics, and geography, “Wild Thing” serves many genres well and multi-genre readers exceptionally well!

Thank you to Sue Prideaux, W.W. Norton & Company, and NetGalley for the eARC!

2025 Women's Prize For Fiction Longlist Nominee.

"Wild Thing" explores the life and times of the post-impressionist Paul Gauguin and how the world influenced his art and techniques. This is a well researched deep dive and I appreciate it for what it is but unfortunately, it felt like reading an Art History textbook rather than a more paced non-fiction