Cezanne in the Barnes Foundation

- Blurb -

Monumental volume devoted to one of the world' s largest and most spectacular collections of Cezannes. The Barnes Foundation' s holdings of works by the renowned Post-Impressionist Paul Cezanne (1839-1906)--61 oils on canvas and 8 works on paper--are among the most significant in the world. The Barnes Foundation was established in 1922 by scientist, entrepreneur, and educator Dr. Albert C. Barnes, a passionate supporter of European modernism. His virtually unrivaled collection, which can only be viewed at the Barnes Foundation, also includes exceptional paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and many others. Beginning in 1912, Barnes acquired works by Cezanne from major Paris dealers such as Paul Durand-Ruel and soon ranked among the artist' s most prominent collectors. At the time, this expressed a pioneering taste that Barnes shared with only a small group of enthusiasts, even though Cezanne had been posthumously hailed as a father of modern art at the turn of the 20th century. The Foundation' s impressive holdings of Cezannes--never before published in a single study in their entirety--span every period of the artist' s career and include his largest rendition of The Card Players and one of the three versions of The Large Bathers, one of his signal testaments. This landmark volume is both a work on Cezanne and his time, and an impetus for further study of an artist whose oeuvre is at once luminous, austere, challenging, and deeply confounding.