Portrait of the artist after a photography, ca 1885, Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art

Among the thousand works painted by the Impressionist Paul Cézanne before he died at 67, there are only 200 portraits, all devoted to his close relatives and many self portraits. So the exhibition on the fifth floor of Musée d’Orsay is interesting because it lets us into the initmacy of his private life.

Louis Auguste Cézanne, father of the artist reading “l’Evénement”, 1866. He was a hat maker and then a banker

The first striking piece is a large vertical painting of his father reading « l’Evénement », an artist’s newspaper. Cézanne was brought up in Aix en Provence and was sent to law school as soon as he passed his baccalauréat. In boarding school at College Bourbon, he had met the future writer Emile Zola, Jean Baptistin Baille, a physicist and optics specialist and Louis Marguery, a vaudeville writer. They would become the « inseparables » and reunite in Paris a few years later.

The collector Victor Chocquet seated, 1877, he owned 35 paintings by Cézanne

Always unlucky with prizes and selections for the Salon, he commutes from Aix where he works in his father’s bank to Paris where he paints. In 1869, at 30, he meets Hortense Fiquet, a young model who becomes his lover, his favorite sitter and his wife in 1886.

There are many strong moments in the show and the second room which shows five portraits of his uncle Dominique is one of them. The low ceiling gives an intimacy to the fairly small paintings and allows the visitor to confront fully the thickness and brutality of the paint. They are amazing from close up.

Four “Madame Cézanne in red” came from Sao Paulo, Basel, Chicago and New York

Another wall in the next room is quite stunning with four “Madame Cézanne in red” painted in 1888-90 hanging together. Once can imagine the tour de force it was to unite them. Hubert Le Gall the scenographer, has used grey and yellow walls to enhance the pace of the exhibition and it is very efficient.

In the same room, the “Man with his arms crossed”, 1899, is so modern in character that you feel you could meet the model on the street today. Many self portraits with and without a hat (Cézanne was very bald) are quite obsessional…

Portrait of Madame Cézanne, 1886-1887, is almost abstract with an air of Modigliani

The show is short, intense and very interesting. This artist who waited till 64 to be invited to Salon d’Automne, has become one of the most celebrated in the world. (Until September 24, Musée d’Orsay, from 26 October to 11 February 2018 at the National Portrait Gallery, London, and March 25- July 1, 2018 at the National Gallery in Washington)

And you can complement your knowledge of the painter with the exhibition “Le Chant de la Terre” at Fondation Gianadda in Martigny, Switzerland, where many landscapes and more portraits are shown until November 19 th.