Paul Cézanne

1839-1906

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) spent most of his life in and around his native Aix-en-Provence, though formative years in Paris brought him into the orbit of Pissarro, Monet and Renoir at the Académie Suisse. Trained first in law to satisfy his banker father, he turned to painting against family wishes, working through Romantic and Realist influences before developing a highly personal method: repeated, exploratory brushstrokes and small planes of color built up into dense, structured fields, reworking perspective and the solidity of objects rather than fleeting light effects alone. Favourite subjects included the family estate at Jas de Bouffan, the fishing village of L'Estaque, and the mountain Sainte-Victoire near Aix. Long rejected by the official Salon and mocked by critics, he found early champions in fellow artists and the dealer Ambroise Vollard, whose 1895 exhibition brought wider recognition. His investigations into form are now seen as a crucial link between Impressionism and the Cubism that followed, and his paintings are held in museums worldwide, including the Honolulu Museum of Art.