Born Euguine Henri Paul Gauguin in Paris, France, he descended from Spanish settlers in South America and the viceroy of Peru, and spent his early childhood in Lima. After his education in Orleans, France, Gauguin spent six years sailing around the world in the Merchant Marine and then in the French Navy. Upon his return to France in 1870, he took a job as a broker's assistant. His guardian, Gustave Arosa, a successful businessman and art collector, introduced Gauguin to the impressionists. 

 A successful stockbroker, Gauguin became a collector and amateur painter. By 1884 Gauguin had moved with his family to Copenhagen, where he unsuccessfully pursued a business career. Driven to paint full-time, he returned to Paris in 1885, leaving his family in Denmark. Without adequate subsistence, his wife and children were forced to return to her family. 

 Like so many great minds, in particular his friend Vincent Van Gogh with whom he spent nine weeks with in Arles painting, Paul Gauguin suffered from bouts of depression and at one time attempted suicide. 

 In 1891, financially destitute, he sailed to the Tropics to escape European civilization and "everything that is artificial and conventional." He remained first in Tahiti and later in the Marquesas Islands for most of the rest of his life, returning to France one time only. 

 He was a very important post-impressionist French painter, whose work helped provide the basis of modern art. Gauguin's bold experimentation with coloring led directly to the fauvist style of the 20th century. 

 He is buried in the Atuona Cemetery, Atuona, Hiva-Oa, Iles Marquises, French Polynesia. 

 The record price paid for a Gauguin painting is US$35 million. 

Famous works: Impression: Sunrise, Water Lilies, Haystacks, Woman with a Parasol
 Style/Period: Impressionist
Where did Claude Monet grow up?
Oscar-Cluade Monet was born on November 15, 1840 in Paris, but his family moved to the port city of Le Havre, France while he was still young. He loved to draw as a child. He began drawing caricatures of people that were quite good. Even as a kid he was able to make some extra money drawing pictures of people.
Around the age of eleven, Claude entered a school for the arts. His mother supported his becoming an artist, but his father wanted him to take over the family grocery business. Claude met some other artists around this time and began to use oil paints to paint the outdoors.
Moving to Paris
A few years after his mother died in 1857, Claude moved to Paris to study art at the Academie Suisse. He was there for about a year when he was drafted into the army. He became sick with typhoid fever in the army and returned home a few years later. Women in the Garden Monet continued to paint outdoor scenes. His paintings were becoming accepted by the art critics in Paris. He then decided to take on large project he called Women in the Garden.
This was a huge painting, over eight feet tall, that he painted outside in the natural light. It was a normal everyday scene. He spent a lot of time on it, but the critics did not like it. He became depressed and was also out of money.
London
War broke out in France in 1870 and Claude moved with is new wife, Camille, to London. There he met art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel who would become one of his strongest supporters. At this time Monet began to study the relation of the city of London to the River Thames.
Impressionists
Monet became friends with several of the leading artists of the time including Pierre Renoir, Edouard Manet, and Camille Pissarro. Together they formed the Society of Anonymous Painters, Sculptors, and Printers. They wanted to experiment with art and not do the same classical art that satisfied the art critics of Paris. They organized an exhibition of their art in 1874. One critic called it the Exhibition of the Impressionists. The term "impressionist" was used to imply that the art was just an impression of something and not completed. It was meant as an insult.
Impression: Sunrise
The critic got the word "impression" from one of Monet's works. It is called Impression: Sunrise. This painting was a great example of the new style. The lighting gives the viewer the feeling or "impression" that the sun is just rising. Monet's use of light was unique. An interesting fact about this picture is the brightness of the sun. It is the same as the sky. If you turn this picture into a black and white picture, the sun virtually disappears. 
 

Van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853 in the Netherlands . He was the son of Anna Cornelia Carbentus and Theodorus van Gogh, who was a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. In his early childhood he was described as intelligent as serious. He spent his childhood in village schools, boarding schools, and public schools. Sometime around 1866, Vincent was first introduced to drawing by his professor Constantijn C. Huysmans. In 1868, however, he abruptly dropped out of school and returned to his parents’ home. After dropping out of school, Vincent became involved in dealing art. For the next several years, he worked in the Netherlands , London , and Paris selling art. Vincent quit selling art in 1876 and became a teacher and a minister’s assistant before working at a bookstore. Vincent next decided he wanted to become a pastor, but failed in his studies.

For much of the 1870’s, it seemed as if Vincent had no real direction in life, bouncing from job to job and dabbling in several different professions without lasting success. Finally, in 1880, after spending time as a missionary in Belgium, Vincent decided to make art his profession. That year, he was accepted into the Royal Academy of Art in Brussels , where he studied the mechanics and theory of art.

In the early 1880’s, Vincent began drawing and painting in earnest. Although there was initially little interest in his work, he was occasionally commissioned to make paintings. During this time, however, Vincent’s personal life was in shambles and he was often plagued by fits of depression and self-loathing. Following the 1885 death of his father, Vincent painted what is considered his first major piece, The Potato Eaters. In August of the same year, his work was displayed on exhibition for the first time in The Hague . In November on 1885, Vincent moved to Antwerpen, where he became interested in vivid colors. While in Antwerpen, he studied Japanese Art and applied the techniques he admired to some of his own paintings. During this time, Vincent’s health from poor nutrition, exposure to various diseases, and smoking continued to decline.

In 1886, Vincent moved to Paris and began to associate with other Parisian impressionists such as Émile Bernard and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. During his time in Paris he adopted a new style that emphasized bright complementary colors, and pointillism. He soon grew weary of the city, however, and moved to Arles in 1888. In Arles , he made over 200 paintings including many world-famous portraits, self-portraits and evening café scenes. Nevertheless, his health continued to decline and he became mentally unstable and susceptible to seizures. In one infamous episode, he cut off his left ear after quarreling with fellow artist Paul Gaugin. Vincent spent 1889 in an insane asylum, where he made over 150 paintings, including the Starry Night, a magical painting that makes the brilliantly lit night sky appear as if it is rolling like waves over a pastoral village. Many of his other paintings also featured dazzling night scenes with glowing stars.

Despite his stay in the asylum, Vincent’s physical and mental health never really improved. On July 27, 1890, Vincent killed himself at Auvers , France . In his lifetime he produced over 800 painting and 700 drawings, only one of which he sold during his lifetime. Although Van Gogh may be the prototype of the “misunderstood artist,” he is considered a genius today, and has influenced generations of painters. In 1990, his painting Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890), one of his most admired pieces, was sold at auction for 82.5 million dollars. At the time, it was the highest price ever paid for a work of art. Interestingly enough, the buyer of the painting, a Japanese business executive, created a controversy when he expressed his desire to have the painting cremated and buried with him upon his death. Ultimately, the painting was not cremated, but the current location of the painting is a mystery.

Salvador Dali strove to shock people, not only through his art, but with his actions and his words as well. He was a Surrealist in all aspects of his life, so much so that the other members of the Surrealist movement eventually tried to separate themselves from Dali.

Born in Catalonia, Spain in 1904, Salvador Dali showed artistic talent early. His father was very strict but his mother was much gentler and encouraged him to explore his interest in art. In 1916 he began drawing classes. Then, in 1922, Dali went to Madrid to study at the Academia de San Fernando.

While at school, Dali painted in the Cubist style and experimented briefly with Dada. It was also during this time that he developed the first of his many strange styles of dress: He grew his hair long and wore sideburns and he dressed in suit coats, stockings, and short pants that stopped at the knee. After nearly four years of school, his ego had grown so large that he decided he was too good for any of the professors to judge him. When he expressed this feeling, he was kicked out of the academy.

After he left the Academia de San Fernando, Dali began to experiment will Surrealism. He also grew a thin mustache that curved up at either end. Both the mustache and the surrealist style would last the rest of Dali’s life.

I cannot show you paintings here (due to copyright law) but I will direct you to some of Dali’s most famous paintings. First, look at The Persistence of Memory. The melting clocks portray the idea that time is not always steady. That weird shape in the middle of the painting is a face. It was based on a rock formation off the shore of Catalonia, Spain.

Next, look at Swans Reflecting Elephants. It is the reflections that make this painting so fantastic.

Dali included reflections in other paintings as well, including Metamorphosis of Narcissus. Focus hard and you’ll see a hand holding a blooming egg (the flower is a narcissus) and, beside it, a man leaning toward the water. The story of Narcissus tells of a man who was so in love with himself that he drown trying to embrace his own reflection. The gods then created a flower in his memory and named it after him. This paintings is Dali’s interpretation of that story.

Dali not only painted, but created sculpture, worked on films (including one for Disney), made jewelry, experimented with photography, and helped design the Dali Theater and Museum in Figueres, Spain.

In 1989, Salvador Dali died. Some believe that, on his deathbed, he was forced to sign blank canvases. As the rumor goes, paintings were later created on the canvases and passed off as Dali’s work.

There are lots of crazy stories about Dali. Sometime I'll write a post just about his wackiness but for now his art is more important.