Wild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin
An enthralling account of an artist whose life was as inventive as his art ... Terrific ... When it comes to Gauguin, she is everything you might want in a biographer: diligent, judicious, compassionate without being indulgent ... It’s certainly a tantalizing opener, but to reduce Wild Thing to myth-busting revisionism would be to fail to do justice to such a rigorous and vibrant book. Prideaux combines archival research, access to newly found source material and her own considerable talent for conveying works of art with arresting immediacy ... Prideaux, is also a nimble and witty storyteller as she guides us through the life ... Briskly readable.
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Spirited, rangy ... Prideaux argues that Gauguin’s Tahitian works add up to anti-colonial rebuke, rather than decorative appropriation of the Other. Your mileage may vary ... She charts the painter’s complex legacy while avoiding the traps of granular biography, illuminating the bridge from fin de siècle innovations to the surge of modernism, as Matisse and Picasso drew on Gauguin’s zeal for color and pre-Colombian pottery ... An ode to both a singular visionary and a world, not unlike ours, in the throes of political and artistic turmoil.
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Gruesomely fascinating ... By the time we arrive at the last years of Gauguin’s life, Ms. Prideaux’s astringent sympathy has accustomed us to one violent or egotistical episode after another ... This is a biography for anyone who wants to know about the man behind some irrepressibly memorable art, about one of the most creatively magic moments of European history and about a vividly extreme version of a recurring human situation.
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