In 1891, Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) arrives on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti. In this lush paradise, he is liberated from the concerns of the city-dwelling European. He is free: to love, to sing, and to create.

In Copenhagen, Gauguin’s wife enjoys no such freedom. She would rather forget her odious husband and his degenerate artwork. Instead, in a city resistant to the avant-garde, she is tasked with selling a collection of his extravagantly priced Tahitian paintings. When they finally go on sale—in Paris, shortly after Gauguin’s return—sales are catastrophic. For Monet, Renoir, and the rest of the old guard, nothing indicates that these bizarre, visionary works are of any lasting significance.

Gauguin: The Other World is a revelatory biography of an artist whose qualities as a man won him few admirers in his own lifetime, but whose talents as a painter would have an enormous influence on the art of Picasso, Matisse, and many more.