Sunday, January 8, 2017

Cézanne Portraits





Musée d'Orsay from 13 June 2017 - 24 September 2017
National Portrait Gallery from 26 October 2017 - 11 February 2018
National Gallery of Art from 25 March - 1 July 2018

The National Portrait Gallery is to stage the first exhibition devoted entirely to portraits by Paul Cézanne, it was announced today, Thursday 8 December 2016. This major new exhibition, Cézanne Portraits, will bring together for the first time over 50 of Cézanne's portraits from collections across the world, including works never before on public display in the UK.

Portraits previously unseen in the UK include the artist's arresting  



Self Portrait in a Bowler Hat (1885-6) on loan from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek gallery in Copenhagen. 

Also on UK display for the first time since the 1930s will be  



Boy in a Red Waistcoat (1888-90),
from the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC,



 one of a series of paintings of a young man in Italian clothes identified as Michelangelo de Rosa,





and Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair (1888-90) on loan from The Art Institute of Chicago, last exhibited in London in 1936 and 1939 respectively.

Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) painted almost 200 portraits during his career, including 26 of himself and 29 of his wife, Hortense Fiquet. Cézanne Portraits will explore the special pictorial and thematic characteristics of Cézanne's portraiture, including his creation of complementary pairs and multiple versions of the same subject. The chronological development of Cézanne's portraiture will be considered, with an examination of the changes that occurred with respect to his style and method, and his understanding of resemblance and identity. The exhibition will also discuss the extent to which particular sitters inflected the characteristics and development of his practise.

Works included in the exhibition will range from Cezanne's remarkable portraits of his Uncle Dominique, dating from the 1860s, through to his final portraits of Vallier, who helped Cézanne in his garden and studio at Les Lauves, Aix-en-Provence, made shortly before the artist's death in 1906. The paintings are drawn from museums and private collections in Brazil, Denmark, France, Japan, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Cézanne is widely understood to be one of the most influential artists of the nineteenth century. Generally categorised as a Post-Impressionist, his unique method of building form with colour, and his analytical approach to nature influenced the art of Cubists, Fauvists, and successive generations of avant-garde artists. Both Matisse and Picasso called Cézanne ‘the father of us all.'

Dr Nicholas Cullinan, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, says: ‘We are delighted to be staging this once in a lifetime exhibition in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris. Up until now, Cezanne's portraiture has received surprisingly little attention, so we are thrilled to be able to bring together so many of his portraits for the first time to reveal arguably the most personal, and therefore most human, aspect of Cézanne's art.'

Cézanne Portraits is curated by John Elderfield, Chief Curator Emeritus of Painting and Sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, where he has organised numerous exhibitions, including major retrospectives devoted to Willem de Kooning, Henri Matisse, and Kurt Schwitters; with Mary Morton, Curator and Head of Department, French Paintings, National Gallery of Art and Xavier Rey, Director of Collections, Musée d'Orsay.

The exhibition is collaboration between the National Portrait Gallery, London; the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC and the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Publication

The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated book featuring 170 beautifully reproduced portraits, with an introductory essay on Cézanne's portraiture by exhibition curator John Elderfield and a dramatis personae on the sitters featured by the artist's biographer, the late Alex Danchev. Catalogue texts are by John Elderfield, Mary Morton and Xavier Rey, and a chronology by Jayne Warman sets the artist's work in the context of his life.

Uncle Dominique

Paul Cézanne 

Uncle Dominique

1865 - 1867  
Oil on canvas 
18-1/8 x 15 in. (46.1 x 38.2 cm) 
Norton Simon Art Foundation 
Copyright: © Norton Simon Art Foundation 





Paul Cézanne


The Gardener Vallier


c.1906

 

Antoine-Fortuné Marion by Paul Cézanne 1870-1 Kunstmuseum, Basel. Photo © Kunstmuseum Basel - Martin P. Bhler; Uncle Dominique in Smock and Blue Cap by Paul Cézanne 1866-7 Metropolitan Museum of Art, Wolfe Fund, 1951 acquired from The Museum of Modern Art, Lillie P. Bliss Collection (53.140.1); Uncle Dominique in Profile by Paul Cézanne 1866-7 Lent by the Syndics of The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge © The Provost and Scholars of King's College, Cambridge
Antony Valabrègue by Paul Cézanne 1866 National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1970.35.1; Anthony Valabrègue by Paul Cézanne 1869-70 J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program; Paul Alexis Reading a Manuscript to Emile Zola by Paul Cézanne 1869-70 Gift Congresso Nacional, 1952. Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand.
The Artist's Father, Reading "L'Evénement" by Paul Cézanne 1866 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1970.5.1; Self-Portrait by Paul Cézanne c.1862-4 Private Collection, New York; Victor Chocquet by Paul Cézanne 1877 Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio: Museum Purchase, Howald Fund 1950.024
Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair by Paul Cézanne c.1877 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Bequest of Robert Treat Paine, 2nd. Photo © 2017 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Self-Portrait by Paul Cézanne 1880-1 The National Gallery, London. Bought, Courtauld Fund, 1925 © The National Gallery, London; The Artist's Son by Paul Cézanne 1881-2 Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée de l'Orangerie) / Franck Raux
Self Portrait with Bowler Hat by Paul Cézanne 1885-6 NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen. Photo: Ole Haupt; Self-Portrait with Bowler Hat by Paul Cézanne 1885-6 Private Collection; Self-Portrait by Paul Cézanne c.1885 Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; acquired through the generosity of the Sarah Mellon Scaife Family
Madame Cézanne in a Red Dress by Paul Cézanne 1888-90 Art Institute of Chicago, Wilson L. Mead Fund, 1948.54; Boy in a Red Waistcoat by Paul Cézanne 1888-90 National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, in Honour of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, (1995.47.5); Man with Pipe by Paul Cézanne 1891-6 The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London; Self-Portrait, Rose Ground by Paul Cézanne c.1875 Musée d'Orsay, Paris. Gift of Philippe Meyer, 2000. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Michèle Bellot
Woman with a Cafetière by Paul Cézanne c.1895 Musée d'Orsay, Paris: Gift of Mr and Mrs Jean- Victor Pellerin, 1956. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski; Old Woman with a Rosary by Paul Cézanne 1895-6 The National Gallery, London. Bought, 1953 © The National Gallery, London; Portrait of a Woman by Paul Cézanne c.1900 Private Collection; Girl with a Doll by Paul Cézanne c.1895 Private Collection, New York
Child in a Straw Hat by Paul Cézanne 1896 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. George Gard De Sylva Collection (M. 48.4); Ambroise Vollard by Paul Cézanne 1899 Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Petit Palais, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais / Agence Bulloz; Man with Crossed Arms by Paul Cézanne c.1899 Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (54.1387); Self-Portrait with Beret by Paul Cézanne 1898-1900 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Charles H. Bayley Picture and Painting Fund and Partial Gift of Elizabeth Paine Metcalf, (1972.950). Photo © 2017 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Seated Woman in Blue by Paul Cézanne 1902-04 Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.; Man in a Blue Smock by Paul Cézanne c.1897 Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; Acquired in 1980 and dedicated to the memory of Richard F. Brown; The Gardener Vallier by Paul Cézanne 1902-06 National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; Gift of Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer, (1959.2.1);The Gardener Vallier by Paul Cézanne 1905-06 Tate, London, Bequeathed by C. Frank Stoop 1933 © Tate, London 2017
Madame Cézanne Sewing by Paul Cézanne 1877 Nationalmuseum, Stockholm. Photo © Eric Cornelius / Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; Madame Cézanne in a Striped Dress by Paul Cézanne 1885-6 Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Henry P. McIlhenny Collection in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny, (1986-26-1); Madame Cézanne by Paul Cézanne 1886-7 Musée d’Orsay, Paris. Photo © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
Madame Cézanne by Paul Cézanne 1885-6 Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Samuel S. White 3rd and Vera White Collection, 1967-30-17; Madame Cézanne by Paul Cézanne 1886-7 Detroit Institute of Arts; Bequest of Robert H. Tannahill. Photo © Bridgeman Images; Madame Cézanne in Blue by Paul Cézanne 1886-7 The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The Robert Lee Blaffer Memorial Collection, gift of Sarah Campbell Blaffer; Madame Cézanne in a Red Dress by Paul Cézanne 1888-90 Lent by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Mr. And Mrs. Henry Ittleson Jr. Purchase Fund, 1962 (acc no. 62.45)