A major show on the portraits of Paul Cézanne is to be held in Paris, London and Washington, DC in 2017-18. This will be the first ever exhibition of his portraits, in what is a collaborative venture between the Musée d’Orsay, London’s National Portrait Gallery and Washington’s National Gallery of Art.
“Until now, Cézanne’s portraiture has received surprisingly little attention, so we are thrilled to be able to bring together so many of his portraits,” says Nicholas Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery. These paintings reveal “the most personal, and therefore most human, aspect of Cézanne’s art”. The lead curator is John Elderfield, of New York’s Museum of Modern Art.
Cézanne painted 200 portraits, with 26 of himself and 29 of his wife Hortense. Around 50 paintings will be coming to the touring exhibition. These include his Self-portrait in a Bowler Hat (1885-86, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen, to be shown in London and Paris only), Madame Cézanne in a Yellow Chair (1888-90, Art Institute of Chicago) and Boy in a Red Waistcoat (1888-90, National Gallery of Art, Washington). Other loans will be from Brazil, Japan and Russia.
For Londoners, the show will be an unusual opportunity to see Cézanne’s work in depth, since UK museums came late to collecting his paintings, and he is much better represented in French museums. This will also be the first time that the National Portrait Gallery has devoted an exhibition to a French Post-Impressionist.
Cézanne’s Portraits, Musée d’Orsay, Paris (13 June-24 September 2017), National Portrait Gallery, London (26 October 2017-11 February 2018) and National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (25 March-1 July 2018)
