A sepia picture of an Anglo-Polynesian woman bought at auction by the author leads him to set off following the traces left by Gauguin of his travels round the globe. Who was the woman in the painting and why did Gauguin paint the face of her son, Atiti, on the day of his death at Papeete? He decides to go to the South Seas in search of the woman and her story. And so starts the author's reconstruction of Gauguin's life, an artist who thought he could find himself by escaping from reality, a man who reinvented exoticism, and finally lost his mind. Accessible and compelling, In Search of Gauguin is a spiritual, human and geographical quest which takes in Holland, Brittany, Provence, Denmark, Panama, Martinique and Tahiti. Coatalem travels in the company of dead painters, patrons, art dealers, and the women of the south seas. Who was the true Gauguin? A businessman chasing sales of his work? A father of five children left behind in Copenhagen. A mystic? A genius?...