The Courtauld Cézannes at Courtauld Institute of Art on artrepublic.com

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The importance of the collection lies not only in its exceptionally high quality but also in its wide range, with seminal paintings, drawings and watercolours from the major periods of the artist’s long career. The Courtauld also holds an important group of nine hand-written letters in which Cézanne reflects upon the fundamental principles of his art. 

The collection includes such masterpieces as the iconic Montagne Sainte-Victoire, c.1887, and Card Players, c.1892-5, which show Cézanne working at the height of his powers (figs. 1 and 2). Through such works the exhibition will chart the development of the artist’s revolutionary approach that would later see him acclaimed as the father of modern art. Having been rejected by the official Paris Salon in 1870, Cézanne exhibited at the first Impressionist group exhibition in 1874. However, his work was radically different from that of his contemporaries and found little favour with critics and collectors.

Courtauld’s conversion to the art of Cézanne came in 1922 when he visited an exhibition at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in London entitled The French School of the Last Hundred Years. He wrote later of his epiphany, "At that moment I felt the magic, and I have felt it in Cézanne’s work ever since". The following year he bought, for his private collection, one of the most important and complex of Cézanne’s late still lifes, Still life with Plaster Cupid, c.1894 (fig. 4). Its radical distortion of perspective challenged the conventions of Western painting and prefigured the advent of cubism. 

A similarly experimental approach is evident in Lac d’Annecy (fig. 5). Cézanne painted this work while on holiday in the Haute-Savoie in 1896, writing dismissively of the conventional beauty of the landscape as "a little like we’ve been taught to see it in the albums of young lady travellers". He rejected such conventions, seeking not to replicate the superficial appearance of the landscape but to express what he described as a "harmony parallel with nature" through a new language of painting.

OPENING HOURS: Daily: 10.00 - 18.00

Image Credits: 

Image 1: Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Still life with Plaster Cupid, c.1894, Oil on paper, laid on board, 70.6 x 57.3 cmThe Courtauld Gallery, London

Slide Show: 

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Montagne Sainte-Victoire, c.1887, Oil on canvas, 66.8 x 92.3 cm, The Courtauld Gallery, London

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Card Players, c.1892-5Oil on canvas, 60 x 73 cm, The Courtauld Gallery, London

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Apples, Bottle and Chairback, c.1900-6, Pencil and gouache on paper, 45.8 x 60.4 cm, The Courtauld Gallery, London