Born in Paris on 7 June 1848. He was the son of Clodoveo Gauguin and Alina Maria Chazal. While he was still very young he was taken by his parents to Lima, Peru, where they lived for 4 years. During this period his father, a newspaper reporter with a left-wing political leaning, died. His mother, a widow, decided to return to France and settled in Orleans, where Paul carried out his first studies. In 1873, he married a young Danish girl, Mette Sophia Gad, with whom he had two children. He worked for a time at the Bertin Exchange Agency and during his free time would paint in the company of his colleague Emile Schuffenecker.
In 1876 he presented a painting at the Salon and from 1880 participated in all the exhibitions of the Impressionists.
At the beginning of 1883, his desire to paint overcame him and he decided to leave his job at the Bertin Agency, with little thought of the consequences that this might bring about for him and his family.
The impossibility of conciliating both his artistic and commercial activities made him suffer terrible hardships. In June 1885, he started travelling frequently from Paris to Bretagne, where he struck up a friendship with the painter Charles Laval. Together they travelled to Panama in April 1887 and then continued to Martinique. Nevertheless, they had to return to Paris towards the end of the year as they had no money left. There, he became friends with the van Gogh brothers, who showed great enthusiasm in his work. An exhibition that was directed by Theo van Gogh at the Gallery in 1880 did not bring about the commercial success which he had expected. Towards the end of 1890, he regularly attended the meetings of symbolic poets and painters held at the Voltaire Cafe and there met and became friends with Mallarme, Aurier, Navice, Redon, Carriere, Mirbeau and those who called themselves the “Nabis”. Early in 1891 he left France and sailed to Tahiti, but he did not stay there for long nor was his stay very prosperous yet he never forgot this trip. He returned to Paris where he remained from August 1893 until February 1895. During this period he went through such difficult economic moments that he embarked for Tahiti once again in 1895. He kept up a relationship with his loyal friend Daniel de Monfucid through writing, the only bond that kept him in touch with Europe after the separation from his wife. In 1898 he tried to kill himself, but after recovering threw himself to painting with more spirit than ever, although he did not have any money.
In 1901, he abandoned Tahiti and sought refuge in the Marquesas Islands (Dominican Islands) where later the authorities declared his presence a dangerous threat to the others and he was condemned to three months of prison. Gravely ill and seriously perturbed by his preoccupations, Gauguin died on 8 May 1903.
