A TIMES , DAILY TELEGRAPH, SPECTATOR, ECONOMIST , NEW STATESMAN AND TLS BOOK OF THE YEAR LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN''S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE POL ROGER DUFF COOPER PRIZE 2025 SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024 A 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 . Gorgeously illustrated with 70 full-colour images ''Scintillating.'' FINANCIAL TIMES ''Immaculate.'' NEW STATESMAN ''Phenomenal.'' PROSPECT ''A heroic rehabilitation.'' THE TIMES Paul 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.

Autorentext
Sue Prideaux's first biography Edvard Munch: Behind the Scream (2005) won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Strindberg: A Life (2012) won the Duff Cooper Prize and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. I Am Dynamite!: A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche (2018) was awarded the Hawthornden Prize and was The Times Biography of the Year. Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin (2024) won the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize and the American Library in Paris award, and was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.