(Paris 1848 - Atuona 1903)
French-born painter, printmaker and sculptor, widely recognized as a leader of the 19th century art with a significant influence on the modern movements of the 20th century.
One of the first artists to experiment with primitivism, his finest and most well-known paintings were done in and depicted Tahiti, where he spent a large part of his life. Amongst his most famous paintings is Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going to? (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston). His life forms the basis of the work The Moon and Sixpence by Somerset Maugham and its opera version by John L. Gardner.