In my book Guys like Gauguin, I look at the lives and work of some of the artists and writers who travelled to live and work in Tahiti in the 1920s.

Adriaan Herman Gouwe

Gouwe born in the Netherlands in 1875 was a Dutch Luminist, painting glorious sunrises and sunsets often with his trademark ox and plough. He was highly rated as a painter, mentioned in the same breath as his Dutch contemporary Piet Mondrian, and yet in 1927 he ran away to Tahiti and lived on the nearby island of Raiatea on and off for the rest of his life.

After a period producing naturalistic deep green and brown landscapes he began to experiment with colour and painted some glorious colour filled oils like this 1950 painting of a Tahitian coast scene.

Guys like Gauguin published by Troubador comes out in August 2026