Title Bathing in Front of the Port of Pont-Aven Creator Paul Gauguin Creator Lifespan 1848 - 1903 Creator Nationality French Creator Gender Male Creator Death Place Atuona, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia Creator Birth Place Paris, France Date 1886 Location Pont-Aven, France Physical Dimensions 31 7/8 x 23 1/2 inches Description Paul Gauguin used his family¡¯s influence to land a job as a stockbroker at the Bourse in Paris. He married in 1871, started what would become a large family, and was well on his way to a comfortable existence that included enough disposable income to collect a few works of contemporary art. His early acquisition of paintings by Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro, however, only deepened his passion for art and introduced him to a milieu he would find irresistible. Before the 1870s were over, much to his wife¡¯s dismay, Gauguin abandoned a promising career in finance to take up the life of an artist. Gauguin proved a gifted student, and he was quickly absorbed into the Impressionist circle. Just weeks after the close of the eighth and final Impressionist show in May 1886, Gauguin traveled to Pont-Aven in Brittany, on France¡¯s rugged and remote northwest coast. He painted Bathing in Front of the Port of Pont-Aven that summer, and its soft, even light and the steady cadence of broken brushwork reveals Gauguin¡¯s late Impressionist manner at its best. Moreover, among the Breton peasants, Gauguin found the simpler ways of life he so admired and eventually would seek in his famous journeys to Tahiti. Provenance Bequest of Mr. and Mrs. Hugo N. Dixon Type Oil paintings Rights Dixon Gallery and Gardens. For Terms and Conditions for use of this image please contact the Registrar at 901-761-5250. Medium Oil on canvas
