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Paul Cezanne in Aix-en-Provence

Documentary on his life, film on his friendship with Émile Zola, song inspired by his work...: more than a century after his death, Paul Cezanne is taking his revenge on an era that failed to recognize the crucial role the native of Aix-en-Provence would play in the history of art. In 2025, his homeland will pay tribute to him through a series of events, including a major exhibition and the reopening of his last studio. 

A fertile source of inspiration

It was after spending a vacation not far from the last studio of the precursor of Post-Impressionism and Cubism that Michel Berger wrote the lyrics to “Cezanne paints”, a song popularized by France Gall, inviting us to travel to the hill of Les Lauves, in the north of Provence's historic capital.

It's still an inspiring place today, with its authentic Provencal country house, its garden leading to a stream and its proximity to the Sainte-Victoire Mountain so dear to the artist.
At this address, which he acquired in 1901, he painted this major motif in his prolific oeuvre 17 times in watercolors and 11 times in oils (and 44 times in all, with many of these canvases now hanging on the walls of the world's most prestigious museums).
This house-workshop with pink shutters, bordered by the Verdon canal and featuring a garden of pine, olive and fig trees, invites visitors to plunge into Cezanne's world, thanks to a faithful reconstruction of his last creative space: 
  • furniture, personal objects (documents, writings, work clothes), 
  • work equipment (easels, paint pots, still-life models) and, perfectly preserved, 
  • the large, light-filled glass roof he had custom-built.

You wouldn't be surprised to see the artist returning from his daily stroll - always from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. - in the heart of his native town. 

The “House of the Illustrious” label (since 2012) had, however, been abandoned after his death in 1906, and its salutary preservation carried out solely thanks to two American biographers and donations collected via their Cezanne Memorial Committee.
It (the olive tree in his garden) is a living thing, I love it like an old friend. He knows my whole life and gives me excellent advice.
Paul Cezanne
It also owes its preservation to the person who, in 1921, bought the house and decided to occupy only the first floor, leaving the upstairs studio as the painter (whom the new owner, long before his contemporaries, admired) had known it and where he created major works such as Les Grandes Baigneuses or Portrait du jardinier Vallier.
These orange-colored canvases depict the verdant nature and landscapes of Aix-en-Provence, his two great sources of inspiration until his death at 67. It was not far from this studio, at the cabanon de Jourdan, that the temporary member of the Impressionist movement was caught in a thunderstorm and contracted pleurisy, which would prove fatal 8 days later. 

Since June 8, 1954, the studio he bought for 2,000 francs, where he gave shelter to Émile Bernard and others, has been a museum open to the public.

A living legacy

Following in the footsteps of the man Picasso described as “the father of all painters” is the experience offered by the Bouches-du-Rhône sub-prefecture, through visits to several sites that, like this studio, left their mark on his life and his vision:

  • The Painters' lot: this garden features 9 reproductions of the most beautiful “Sainte-Victoire”, the mountain he painted tirelessly from this panorama on the Lauves hill. 

  • Another of Cezanne's favorite outdoor studios: the Bibémus quarries, a rocky plateau of ochre stones that inspired 11 oils and 16 watercolors. With its colors and geometric rocks, the geological site contributed to the emergence of Cubism, and can be explored through thematic trails comparing the painter's representations with the reality of this natural motif dating back to Antiquity.
  • The bastide du Jas de Bouffan: the artist's family home, it was his landmark for 40 years, where he painted dozens of works (portraits, still lifes, landscapes) including his famous “Card Players”. 

In this house, whose style is emblematic of the Aix region, you can still feel the presence of the pioneer of abstraction as you visit his very first studio, the family kitchen and his wife's bedroom.

As part of the Year of Cezanne, this place will be the subject of an exhibition at the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence: from June 28 to October 12, 2025, some one hundred paintings, drawings and watercolors (some of which will be returning from New York or Tokyo for the occasion) will be brought together, showing the artist's evolution over the 4 decades he lived on his parents' property. 

This year, more than ever, we're heading to the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region to discover the ancient spa town (Aix-en-Provence is even nicknamed the “City of a Hundred Fountains”) in the footsteps of the great visionary painter.

Bon voyage.


Valérie from Comme des Français



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