Emile Marae a Tai Gauguin

Emile Marae a Tai Gauguin is the son of famed painter Paul Gauguin and his Tahitian mistress Pahura.

One of the most intriguing members of an extraordinary family. Emile, raised as a native islander, became a familiar tourist attraction as he strolled the beaches in his Hawaiian shirts and posed for cameras ("Me son of Gauguin). An obese, semiliterate derelict noted for his drunken brawls (he once tipped over a truck), he was dried out and brought to Chicago by French journalist Josette Giraud in 1963. There he painted with an innate artistic gusto. His deft canvases won him praise as a "powerful painter in his own right," and most critics could agree with his own happy belief that "My father be proud of me."