Gauguin was the son of an émigré journalist He grew up in Lima (Peru), then in Orleans and Paris. He settled by the sea in 1865 until 1871, when he returned to Paris. He worked as a stockbroker in Paris, painting in his spare time. He married a Danish woman, Mette Gad, in 1873, and they had five children. He met Pissarro and other Impressionists in 1874 and studied at the Academie Colarossi. He painted with Pissarro and Cezanne in the years 1879-1881, and exhibited at the Salon and at other Impressionist exhibitions a number of times. In 1882, he moved to Rouen, then Copenhagen where he got into financial difficulties. He returned to Paris in 1885 leaving his family in Denmark. He went to Pont-Aven for the first time in 1886 and met Bernard. He took part in the 8th Impressionists Exhibition in Paris, where he became acquainted with the van Gogh brothers. He traveled with the painter Laval to Panama and Martinique in 1887, then returned to stay with Bernard and others in Pont-Aven, Brittany. In his depictions of Breton customs his style moved towards "synthetist symbolism". Later, he exhibited with Theo van Gogh and stayed with Vincent van Gogh in Arles, which ended in a disastrous personal conflict. He continued painting in Pont-Aven and Le Pouldu, influencing Serusier, Denis and Bonard.

After auctioning off his paintings in Paris in 1891, he broke off with Bernard and emigrated to Tahiti, in search of an alternative life to that of European city civilization. He became ill with syphilis. In 1893 to 1895 he tried selling his large, symbolic pictures with their areas of flat, bright colors and scenes of the South Seas, the epitome of exotic "Primitivism", but had no success in Paris, Copenhagen and Brittany. He returned to Tahiti in 1895 where he also worked on sculptures, but his health suffered, partly from alcohol. He published his autobiographical work "Noa Noa" in 1897. In 1898, he attempted suicide while living in desperate poverty. Shortly thereafter, in 1901, Gauguin moved to the Island of Dominique in the Marquesas Islands. Because he protested against the policies of the colonial administration, he was arrested in 1903. During the same year he died, worn out, at the age of 54.