Paul Gauguin
Paul Gauguin lodged near the Gare du Nord with his son Clovis after losing his income, working as a bill-poster in the winter of 1886 to pay for the boy's medicine.
10 rue Cail
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
The cheap room near the Gare du Nord where Gauguin lived with his young son Clovis after the crash took his income — the same city as the place Saint-Georges, and a different world.
- 10 rue Cail, 75010 Paris
- Gauguin's lodging in poverty after the loss of his income
The place, briefly
After the 1882 crash and the collapse of his marriage, Paul Gauguin came back to Paris with one of his sons, Clovis, and no money at all. They lodged near the Gare du Nord, in a district of railway workers and recent arrivals about as far from the place Saint-Georges as the same city allows.
This is the period in which he took whatever work he could get. In the winter of 1886 he was pasting advertising bills for a few francs a day, partly to pay for medicine when Clovis fell seriously ill. He was in his late thirties, had been a prosperous man five years earlier, and had chosen this.
It is worth holding both facts at once when looking at the Tahitian pictures: the man who painted them had been genuinely destitute in Paris, and he had also left a wife and five children behind in Copenhagen to get there.
The building stands, unmarked, on a street that has kept its working character.
Key facts
- The mid-1880s, after his income collapsed
- His son Clovis
- Bill-posting for a few francs a day in the winter of 1886
- La Chapelle, by the Gare du Nord
- Private — exterior only
Timeline
Gauguin returns to Paris with Clovis, effectively destitute.
He works as a bill-poster through the winter; Clovis falls ill.
He leaves for Pont-Aven in Brittany.
On the map
Questions before you go
Was Gauguin poor?
For long stretches, yes. After the 1882 crash he lost his living entirely and was reduced to bill-posting in Paris in 1886 to buy medicine for his son.
People who knew this place
Within walking distance
Gare du Nord
Paris's great northern railway terminus: an operating 1864 station, a monumental Second Empire façade, and the place where the American poet Langston Hughes began his first Paris day with seven dollars.
Visit the placeSalle d'Harcourt, 40 rue de Rochechouart
The modest concert hall where the Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune was first performed on 22 December 1894 — a piece often treated as the beginning of modern music, premièred in a room almost nobody has heard of.
Visit the place39 rue Bleue
Where Paul Cézanne lodged when he arrived in Paris in 1861 at twenty-two, having finally won his banker father's permission to paint — and where he lasted a matter of months before retreating to Aix.
Visit the placeThe Sacré-Cœur
The white basilica on the summit of Montmartre, built by public subscription after France's defeat in 1870 and consecrated in 1919 after nearly forty years of work. Entry is free, every day 6.30 a.m. to 10.30 p.m. The dome — 280 steps, no lift — costs €8 and gives a 360-degree view over Paris.
Visit the placeThe Friday Letter
Paris, one address at a time.
The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.