Cezanne et nous

Exhibition at the Grand Palais, Paris, 23 September 2026 – 17 January 2027

From the 1880s onwards, Cézanne’s work was admired and collected by fellow artists. Between 1895 and 1905, there were the solo exhibitions organised by Ambroise Vollard and those at the Salon d’Automne, followed by the first major international exhibitions. These events secured the critical and commercial success of the master from Aix and established him as the father of modernity, both for the European avant-garde movements of the 1910s and for major international collectors.

The artist, having achieved global recognition, was subsequently viewed in a kaleidoscopic manner from the post-war period through to contemporary art, both by proponents of lyrical abstraction (Zao Wou-Ki, Pierre Soulages, Simon Hantaï, Joan Mitchell, Serge Poliakoff) as by those of Hard Edge painting and Op Art (Victor Vasarely, Ellsworth Kelly, Bridget Riley, Brice Marden).

This exhibition catalogue presents the work of Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) in the context of his artistic legacy, in a constant, comprehensive and unprecedented dialogue with the works of artists from the nineteenth century to the present day. Seventy works by Cézanne are presented alongside more than one hundred works by seventy-nine other artists.