Gauguin Portraits at the National Gallery: visiting two of the artist's homes in France inspired by this autumn's landmark exhibition

Brilliant and complicated “Synthesist” French artist Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) moved from flat to flat, town to town, country to country, living cheaply, often supported by friends.

He got into spats over love and art. Some hated his work, many were amazed. He brawled, sponged — and created unforgettable art.

Now for the first time his vivid portraits, a quarter self-portraits, go on show at the National Gallery from October 7, offering blasts of colour and feeling.

After working in finance for 10 years, in 1886, aged 38, Gauguin moved to Brittany to paint full time. Done to save money, the move also resulted in the development of his innovative, powerful style.

He stayed first in the picturesque artists colony of Pont-Aven; then settled in a tiny, wild village of 150 inhabitants along the coast, called Le Pouldu. Its crags, treacherous rocks and boiling sea around a cove look like a set for Poldark.

During four periods in Brittany, Gauguin also spent time in Paris, in Arles with Van Gogh, plus Denmark, Panama, Martinique, and Tahiti.

Though often in Paris around arty Montparnasse, he never owned property there, and died in the French Marquesas, where he’d moved from Tahiti to save money. His last 10 years were lived outside France.

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was born in Paris to a mother with aristocratic Spanish-Peruvian blood. The family sailed to Peru when he was 18 months old, but his father died at sea.

He and his sister were raised wealthy until he was six. It seems likely that Gauguin’s autocratic, self-serving, flamboyant and often reckless adult life was rooted in entitlement, but after a reversal of fortune the family, broke, returned to France.

A teenage Gauguin joined the navy, then in 1871, at 23, became a stockbroker, marrying Danish Mette-Sophie Gad in 1825.

Making good money, he also began painting — in Impressionist style — and investing in art. He moved his growing family into a Parisian house but in 1877 took an easier bank job and moved to the suburbs to paint more.

He studied under Camille Pissarro and his work featured in major exhibitions. However, by 1886, now focused on art, his marriage was in tatters.

Mette settled in Denmark and Gauguin moved to Pont-Aven in Brittany, three long days from Paris. Then a train cut the journey to 14 hours and American and European artists poured in, taking over the smart Hotel Julia on the main square.

Gauguin had settled in a cheaper boarding house, run by Marie-Jeanne Gloanec. This attractive dormered house is still there to see.

Downstairs was a lively café and restaurant. Board and lodging was a mere 60 francs a month. Artists went off to paint, returning for meals washed down with cider.

Fifteen artists gathered around Gauguin, who adopted Breton dress, and carved his own wooden clogs. He taught young disciple Paul Sérusier to paint with blocks of colour, flat planes and abstracted forms.

The resulting picture, done in 20 minutes, crystallised Gauguin’s distinctive new way of painting, and started a movement that broke with Impressionism for good.

But restless Gauguin found Pont-Aven tame. In 1889 he moved to little-known Le Pouldu, settling in the Buvette de la Plage inn, an attractive two-storey house with good light. Even cheaper than Pension Gloanec, it has been recreated in detail next to the site of the original house.

The innkeeper, Marie Henry, cooked, kept pigs, and slept with Gauguin’s artist friend, Dutchman Jacob Meijer De Haan, who paid Gauguin’s bills.

Marie shrewdly ran one room as a bar serving absinthe. But the dining room is the showstopper.

Partly to settle bills, partly trapped indoors in winter, the artists painted its walls in brilliant, hot colours. Gauguin did portraits of himself and Jacob on the cupboard doors, and painted the tongue-and-groove ceiling.

These pictures, whose priceless originals are in museums, are recreated. He even painted the windows, glowing like stained-glass.

Gauguin worked prodigiously, and many of the important, memorable portraits on show were done at Pont-Aven and at Le Pouldu, whose stark difference from Paris inspired him, and where his colourful life still lingers.

Gauguin Portraits, Oct 7-Jan 26 at The National Gallery (nationalgallery.org.uk). A Credit Suisse Exhibition.

Pension Gloanec at Pont-Aven, an art centre/bookshop: pensiongloanec.com

House museum Buvette de la Plage: maisonmuseedupouldu.blogspot.com