Cezanne's Card Players - Softcover

Barnaby Wright

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1907372113 ISBN 13: 9781907372117

Publisher: Paul Holberton Publishing, 2010

Synopsis

Paul Cezanne's famous series of paintings of peasants playing cards has long been considered among his most important and powerful works. The image of seated peasants, still and seeming silent, concentrating on their game of cards, can be seen as the human counterpart to the landscapes of Cezanne s home countryside, notably Montagne Sainte-Victoire, which held such iconic significance for him. The two most ambitious versions show three card players, with spectators; in the other three the subject is distilled into a simpler form, with two figures facing each other, seen in profile, as in the Courtauld masterpiece. This catalogue accompanies a landmark exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, London, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, that will be the first to bring together the majority of these remarkable paintings alongside a magnificent group of Cezanne s closely related portraits of Provencal peasants and rarely seen preparatory oil sketches and drawings. Accompanies an exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery, London, 21 October 2010 January 2011, travelling to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

About this title

Review:

'Stand back and watch the artist's thought processes over a span of five years, as he casts a critical eye over a finished canvas, decides that he can do something to improve it, starts another canvas, fails again, but fails better. Moving from picture to picture, we can see how he corrects and strengthens perceived weaknesses, as in each attempt he tries to find monumentality, simplicity and pictorial unity.' --The Telegraph, Richard Dorment

'[It represents] an extraordinary moment in Cezanne's career, and... does it full justice.' --The Independent, Charles Darwent

About the Author:

Barnaby Wright is a fixture of The Courtauld, having completed his BA, MA, and PhD at the Institute, the latter two under the supervision of Professor Christopher Green. In 2005, he joined Somerset House as a curator at the Hermitage Rooms. Currently, he is the Curator of Painting of the Courtauld Gallery, having most recently worked as the lead curator and catalogue author for the enormously successful show Walter Sickert: The Camden Town Nudes .

About this edition

• Publisher: Paul Holberton Publishing
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1907372113
• ISBN 13: 9781907372117
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160