Paris Cézanne show traces influence from Picasso to Doig
Paris will see its first large Paul Cézanne exhibition in 30 years when 'Cezanne and Us' opens at the Grand Palais in Paris on 23 September.
The show follows the French painter, who lived from 1839 to 1906, through the eyes of those who came after him. Its reach runs from Pablo Picasso to the British painter Peter Doig, as reported by The Art Newspaper.
It is organised by three Paris institutions, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. It runs until 17 January 2027, according to the Grand Palais. The Grand Palais describes it as an unprecedented exhibition dedicated to Cézanne and his artistic legacy.
The joint organisation was prompted in part by the Centre Pompidou's five-year closure for renovations. It is the first major Paris exhibition of Cézanne's work since the Musée d'Orsay's 'Cezanne' at the Grand Palais in 1995. Jean-Rémi Touzet, curator of paintings at the Musée d'Orsay, said the choice of the Grand Palais was about making the most of its turn-of-the-century grandeur and uniquely generous exhibition space.
The exhibition brings together 70 works by Cézanne, many from the collections of the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée de l'Orangerie. Alongside them hang 75 works by other artists. They include André Derain, the German photographer Wolfgang Tillmans, the American painter Joan Mitchell, the Chinese-French painter Zao Wou-Ki and the Lebanese-American writer and painter Etel Adnan.
Cézanne did not always find a ready audience in his lifetime. Paul Gauguin bought six Cézanne paintings in the 1880s, an early vote of confidence from a fellow painter. In 1904, the artist Émile Bernard defended his work in an article in the journal Occident. Picasso later described Cézanne as "the father of us all." Cézanne died in 1906.
Dealers and collectors soon carried that reputation abroad. From 1897, gallerists Paul Cassirer and Julius Meier-Graefe showed Cézanne's work in Berlin. His paintings were then exhibited at the 1908 Zolotoe Runo salon in Moscow, a showcase for Impressionist, Post-Impressionist and Fauvist art. A section on international Modernism groups works by Picasso, Henri Matisse, Max Beckmann, Piet Mondrian and Kazimir Malevich around three subjects Cézanne returned to again and again: landscape, still life, or arranged objects, and bathers.
That thread runs to the present. Peter Doig's 2023 painting 'Bather' was inspired by Cézanne's 'The Bather.' What makes this stand out for a newcomer is the pairing. You see the starting point and the answer in the same room.
