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Written alongside the resurfacing<\/a> of Paul Gauguin\u2019s memoir and will, Sue Prideaux chronicles the controversial genius\u2019 life in \u201cWild Thing: A Life of Paul Gauguin.\u201d Having previously authored biographies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Edvard Munch and August Strindberg, Prideaux is comfortable synthesizing historical fact, criticism and a decades-long narrative. This well-researched account of Gauguin\u2019s life is supplemented by prints of the French artist\u2019s sketches, sculptures and paintings \u2014 displaying the beautiful intimacy of his canvases and the haunting darkness of his innovative wood-carvings.<\/p>\n Prideaux seeks to complicate the narrative around an artist she describes as \u201cmisunderstood,\u201d who others label as a colonizer. Gauguin\u2019s revered status in art history is extensive: Hailed as the father of Primitivism<\/a> and an apostle of Symbolism, the Post-Impressionist\u2019s influence is undeniable. Yet his role in fetishizing Polynesian natives and perpetuating French colonialism is a topic that museum exhibitions and the artist\u2019s admirers alike still grapple with. The author does not shy away from this discussion, but clearly seeks to sanitize \u2014 or at least add ambiguity to \u2014 his sullied legacy.\u00a0<\/p>\n After spending his early childhood in Peru, Gauguin felt out of place upon immigrating to France. This alienation strongly informed his creative choices, particularly his fascination with foreign artwork and forms. Gauguin\u2019s lifelong compulsion toward the the distant, which he perceived as exotic, culminated in him spending the last years of his life in Tahiti, painting and living among the island\u2019s inhabitants.\u00a0<\/p>\n Prideaux contributes to the artist\u2019s canon by delving into how Gauguin resisted colonial powers in Polynesia, legally representing natives and starting a newspaper to champion their causes. However, these efforts are fundamentally overshadowed by his relationships with teenage Tahitians. This exploitation is inescapable when viewing Gauguin, as his work during this period features predominantly naked, idealized depictions of native women and girls.<\/p>\n