aixcentric

A Paul Cezanne retrospective, just opened in Chicago and then travelling to London, is the artist’s largest individual exhibition since the 1990s. The two venues are the Art Institute of Chicago (15 May-5 September) and Tate Modern (5 October-12 March 2023).

In Chicago, there will be 90 oil paintings, 40 watercolours and two sketchbooks, with a slightly smaller selection in London.

One loan, a rather special one, is Cezanne’s palette and box of watercolour paints which were bought four years ago from the artist’s great-grandson, Philippe Cezanne by the Musée Granet.  They were displayed at the time and were I thought delightfully messy.

The shows, and catalogue, will also illustrate the influence that Cezanne had on his contemporaries and 20th-century artists. One interesting example is his Still life with Fruit Dish (1879-80), on loan from New York’s MoMA. It was once owned by Paul Gauguin, who described it as “an exceptional pearl, the apple of my eye”.  Gauguin included the painting in the background of Woman in front of a Still life by Cezanne (1890). This pair of pictures by the two artists will be shown alongside each other in Chicago. Tate Modern has decided to present only works by Cezanne. But the artist’s Still life with Fruit Dish will be shown in London for the first time, along with 20 other Cezannes never previously exhibited in the UK.