Cézanne and Paris

The Grand Palais Museum organizes, in collaboration with the Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris and with special support from the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, the exhibition Cézzane and Paris, that will be on show at the Musée du Luxembourg until February 26, 2012.

Although Cézanne (1839-1906) is usually associated with Provence, he cannot be confined to the south of France. He spent more than half of his time as a painter in Paris and its environs. He travelled between Aix en Provence and Paris over twenty times.

When he was already an elderly man and still racked with doubts he painted in secluded spots on the banks of the Marne or near Fontainebleau, or made portraits of an art dealer or a critic and often his wife. He was no longer the young man eager to "conquer" Paris, wanting to be admitted to the fine art school and show his works in the Salon. In Paris, he came up against both tradition and modernity. He worked out "formulas" that he later used in Provence. After 1890, critics, art dealers, and collectors started to take an interest in his work.

Cézanne longed for recognition which could only come from Paris. More than any other artist, he left his stamp on modern art: avant-garde artists from the postimpressionists to Kandinsky looked on him as a forerunner, "the father of us all" as Picasso said.

The exhibition of about 80 works is divided into five sections:

1. Following Zola to Paris.
2. Paris, the City beyond the Walls, near Auvers.
3. The Temptation of Paris.
4. Pose like an Apple. Still Lifes and Portraits
5. The Paths of Silence

Date: until February 26.
Location: Musée du Luxembourg. 19 rue de Vaugirard, 75006 Paris. France.
Opening hours: from Fridays to Monday from 9am to 10pm. From Tuesday to Thursday  from 10am to 8pm.