Still Lives with A Soul

Alison Cole previews the first major exhibition devoted entirely to portraits by the father of Modern art.

- Alison Cole

For many admirers of the post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), his name conjures up rugged sunlit images of his native Aixen-Provence and rigorously constructed still-lifes that reflect the interior world of his studio. Such works were to have a profound effect on Cézanne’s avantgarde peers, notably Picasso and Matisse, who used his example to forge their own paths to Cubism, Fauvism and beyond. As they both famously acknowledged, he was ‘the father of us all’.

The impact and extent of Cézanne’s work as a portraitist is less well known. This is surprising, given that his works in this genre are perhaps even more revealing about the development of his creative process and the extraordinary impact he had on other artists. ‘Cézanne Portraits’, a collaboration between the Musée d’orsay in Paris, the National Portrait Gallery in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington D. C., is the first major exhibition to consider this radical strand of the artist’s work. With five-star reviews from its recent showing in Paris, it is an absolute ‘must see’.