Dates

June 17, 2026 – April 7, 2027　Open Daily  (Closed on December 1)

Venue

Gallery 5

Paul Cezanne (1839–1906) was born in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. After studying art in that provincial town, he moved to Paris, where exposure to the latest developments in art, and to modernity more broadly, set him on the path to an original style of his own. He took part in two of the Impressionist exhibitions but distanced himself from the Impressionist pursuit of the fleeting moment. Settling back in his native Provence, where he refined his practice over the years that followed, Cezanne pursued a single overarching aim: to make of art “a harmony parallel to nature.”

Cezanne expressed form and space through color and built his images with constructive brushstrokes. Rooted in close observation of nature yet detached from it, his achievement stands as a self-sufficient art consisting of purely pictorial elements, and his works have drawn enduring acclaim and shaped generations of artists who followed. He died at his home in Aix on October 23, 1906, and this year marks the 120th anniversary of his death. To mark the occasion, the Pola Museum of Art presents a selection of his work from the collection and takes a close look at the art that transformed the course of 20th-century painting.

“Art is a harmony parallel to nature.”　――Paul Cezanne, 1897

“Cézanne had no conception of beauty. He had only a conception of truth.”　――Émile Bernard, 1907