Exhibition of Cezanne self-portraits opening in London
Cezanne was one of the most influential artists of the 19th century,
Three self-portraits by Paul Cezanne are going on public display in the UK for the first time.
The works, painted by the French artist in 1885 and 1886, will be part of an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Entitled Cezanne Portraits, the exhibition will bring together more than 50 of Cezanne’s paintings from collections across the world.
The first of the three self-portraits was, together with Cezanne’s earliest self-portrait, the only painted self-portrait to be based upon a photograph.
Also displayed for the first time in the UK will be two portraits of Cezanne’s wife Hortense Fiquet – Madame Cezanne Sewing (1877), which is on loan from the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, and Madame Cezanne (1886–7), which is on loan from the Detroit Institute of Arts.
The exhibition also includes a number of works that were last exhibited in this country in the 1920s and 1930s.
Cezanne (1839-1906) was one of the most influential artists of the 19th century, with Matisse and Picasso calling him “the father of us all”.
He painted almost 200 portraits, including 26 of himself and 29 of his wife.
National Portrait Gallery director Dr Nicholas Cullinan said: “We are delighted to have brought together an unprecedented number of Cezanne’s portraits for the first time in order to reveal arguably the most personal, and therefore most human, aspect of his art.
“While Cezanne may have learnt a great deal from the Impressionists, his aim was quite different, his vision unique, informed by a desire to see through appearances to the underlying structure of things by means of mass, line and shimmering colour. Nowhere was this more evident than in his portraits. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition.”
:: Cezanne Portraits will be at the National Portrait Gallery in London from October 26 2017 to February 11 2018.
