Philadelphia has long been a center for the collecting of works by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906). The Barnes Foundation in nearby Merion houses the most extensive gathering of his works in the world. The Cézanne collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, with fifteen oil paintings, nine watercolors, and a complete group of prints, ranks among the most important resources for the study of the great French Impressionist.

The Museum will gather together its holdings and add to them some ten paintings and ten watercolors from local private collections. The exhibition, while not large in scale, will present the artist in all the variety of his subjects--figures, portraits, still lifes, and landscapes. The Great Bathers purchased by the Museum in 1937, on which Cézanne was working when he died, stands as his most ambitious and stately achievement.

However, there will be many other highlights, such as three portraits of Madame Cézanne which rank among his most haunting and tender works, as well as a group of watercolors and late oils on the monumental theme of Mont Sainte Victoire.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue which will include full illustrations and discussions of each work as well as an essay examining the history of the intense fascination--unprecedented in this country or abroad--which Cézanne holds for collectors in this area. The exhibition is supported by grants from The Pew Memorial Trust and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Support

The Pew Memorial Trust
The National Endowment for the Arts

Curator

Joseph J. Rishel