Paul Cézanne and Auguste Renoir: looking at the world

The works by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) and Auguste Renoir (1841–1919) conserved at the Musée de l’Orangerie and originally acquired by the art dealer Paul Guillaume (1891-1934), and then by his wife Domenica (1898-1977) after his death, constitute the heart of this exhibition. The corpus provides an overview of much of the two painters’ careers, from the 1870s until their deaths. It is complemented by several loans from the Musée d’Orsay’s collection and three modern paintings by Picasso and Kees Van Dongen from the Orangerie’s collection.

Paul Cézanne and Auguste Renoir established themselves as two great masters of French painting in the last quarter of the 19th century and very beginning of the 20th century. From the impressionist cradle of their beginnings to their mature years, the two men continued to follow their own unique paths, expressing themselves in different styles: geometric rigor for Cézanne and delicate harmony for Renoir.

In Paris in the 1860s, the two men formed a lasting friendship bolstered by reciprocal admiration. Renoir went on to stay with Cézanne in the South of France on a number of occasions in the 1880s and 1890s. There are numerous crossing points between the two masters’ works. Landscapes, still lifes, portraits of their circle, nudes, and the later depictions of women bathing were all common fields of experimentation for the two painters. Observation of the model and nature combined with a desire to draw out a timeless essence led them both to embody a form of classical modernity.

Tutelary figures for new generations of painters, their works left a fertile legacy in the 20th century, in works from Picasso to Matisse by way of Denis and Bonnard

Curatorship

• Cécile Girardeau, curator at the Musée de l’Orangerie
• With the collaboration of Alice Marsal, head of archives and documentation at the Musée de l’Orangerie