The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham

The Moon and Sixpence is a fictional novel heavily influenced by the life of French painter Paul Gauguin. The novel is told first-person, dipping episodically into the mind of the artist. Charles Strickland is an English stock broker, who leaves everything behind him in his middle age to live in defiant squalor in Paris as an artist. His genius is eventually recognized by a Dutch painter.