WILD THING: A LIFE OF PAUL GAUGIN (HB)

Award-winning biographer Sue Prideaux re-examines the adventurous and complicated life of the Post-Impressionist artist Paul Guagin. 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. The book conjures Gauguin's visual exuberance, his creative epiphanies, his fierce words and his flaws with acuity and sensitivity and, drawing from a wealth of new material and access to the artist's family, it invites us to see Gauguin anew.