Paul Gauguin

11 Stories

Sale of Microsoft Co-Founder's Art Smashes Records

It's the most valuable private collection ever auctioned at $1.5B—with 95 lots still to go

(Newser) - Christie's $1 billion estimate of the value of Paul Allen's art collection turned out to be just a bit off. Sixty pieces sold for a combined $1.5 billion on Wednesday in the first of a two-day auction in New York—smashing the $922 million record for the...

Only Known Letter by 2 Great Artists Sells for Big Bucks

1888 letter was written weeks before Van Gogh, Gauguin's relationship soured

(Newser) - The Vincent Van Gogh Foundation has purchased the only known letter signed by artists Vincent Van Gogh and Paul Gauguin at an auction in Paris. The cost of the four sheets of paper: $237,700, per Reuters . The artists penned the letter to fellow painter Emile Bernard in early November...

In Remote Chile, Skeleton of Gauguin's Dad Found

Remains at Chilean fort believed to be his

(Newser) - Artist Paul Gauguin was a little more than a year old when his parents left Paris bound for Peru. But during a stop at a Chilean fort near Antarctica on Oct. 30, 1849, Gauguin's father, Clovis, died suddenly of a heart aneurysm. His family saw him buried, but the...

Scientists 'Blown Away' by Gaugin's Art Techniques

Shortly before his death, Gauguin devised highly complicated printmaking

(Newser) - The French artist Paul Gauguin may be best known for his paintings—one of which sold just this month for $300 million , one of the highest prices ever paid for a work of art—but the printmaking he worked on toward the end of his life in the early 1900s...

Stolen Gauguin Was on Factory Worker's Wall for Decades

He didn't realize it until son saw it in a book

(Newser) - They looked like nice enough paintings, so a factory worker in Italy shelled out $30 back in 1975 for the two works at a public auction. They'd been abandoned on a train, after all, so they couldn't be that valuable, right? Wrong, reports the BBC . The Fiat worker...

Gauguin Attacker: Painting Is 'Very Homosexual'

'Evil' painting unharmed after Susan Burns' gallery attack

(Newser) - The woman who attacked a Paul Gauguin painting in Washington's National Gallery believed the painting of two topless Tahitian women was both "evil" and "homosexual," according to a criminal complaint obtained by The Smoking Gun . "I feel that Gauguin is evil. He has nudity and is...

Woman Attacks Gauguin at National Gallery

'This is evil,' shouts visitor who pounds painting with her fists

(Newser) - A Paul Gauguin painting of two topless Tahitian women was attacked on Friday by an angry National Gallery visitor who pounded on the artwork, shouting: "This is evil!" She “was really pounding it with her fists,” a witness told the Washington Post . “It was like...

Gauguin's Echoes Haunt Pacific Island
 Gauguin's Echoes 
 Haunt Pacific Island 
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Gauguin's Echoes Haunt Pacific Island

Serene Polynesian land draws modern Gauguins, artist's fans

(Newser) - Tucked into French Polynesia is Hiva Oa, the Marquesan island that French painter Paul Gauguin made his home 100 years ago. Remnants of Gauguin litter the remote settlement of 2,000 people, as do heaps of skulls left from its violent past. But today, Hiva Oa serves as a serene...

It Was Gauguin Who Cut Off van Gogh's Ear

Historians say Dutch painter loss his ear in a fight

(Newser) - Vincent van Gogh's fame derives not only from his paintings, but from the legendary story that he sliced off his own ear and presented it to a prostitute. But two art historians now say that the Dutch painter didn't mutilate himself. After a decade of research, they argue that Paul...

Getty Lands a Morbid Gauguin
 Getty Lands a Morbid Gauguin 

Getty Lands a Morbid Gauguin

LA museum buys painting of decapitation scene after 8-year search

(Newser) - The J. Paul Getty Museum has acquired an 1892 work by Paul Gauguin the Los Angeles institution's curator calls "the most famous painting by Gauguin that no one has seen," the Los Angeles Times reports. Arii Matamoe (The Royal End)—bought from a Swiss collector for an undisclosed...

Gauguin Sculpture a Fake
Gauguin Sculpture a Fake

Gauguin Sculpture a Fake

'The Faun' outed as impostor after decade in Chicago art museum

(Newser) - After a decade on display at the Art Institute of Chicago, a ceramic figure allegedly sculpted by Paul Gauguin was revealed yesterday to be a fake. The museum discovered 'The Faun,' a half-man, half-goat figure, to be the work not of the 19th century French artist, but of a...

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