French born Jean René Gauguin was the son of the famous artist Paul Gauguin and his Danish wife Mette Gad. He spent most of his life in Denmark where he was educated as a carpenter and worked as a sailor, but made his career as a self-taught sculptor. In 1909 Gauguin became a Danish citizen. After the death of his father, whom he had met for the last time at the age of 10, he made extensive travels through Europe. He then turned to sculpture and worked in wood and bronze but also as a ceramist. At a ceramics company he learned about tin-glazed faience. In 1923 he became a senior artist at the Bing & Grøndahl porcelain manufactory. In the following years he created mainly faience, for instance for the Sèvres company.
He produced at least four life-size sculptures of sporting male figures between 1921 and 1936. In 1924 he won the bronze medal with his bronze sculpture Boxer from 1922. At the time regarded as a not very aesthetic work, Gauguin allegedly owed his medal probably less to his art than to his name. The more than 2 m high statue is now in the State Museum for Art in København. A year earlier, a model was made of plaster and cement, which now stands in front of the stadium in Århus.
Denmark