The Courtauld Gallery Presents Cézanne’s Card Players

For the first time ever, Paul Cézanne’s group of paintings of French card playing and pipe smoking peasants have been brought together by The Courtauld Gallery of London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York.

Paul Cézanne's The Card Players

Cézanne’s works, considered by many “to be among his most iconic and powerful” ones, are put in the focus of an exhibition for the first time. The impressionist masterpieces depict French peasants of Aix-en-Provence, who thus make an appearance unusual of their class at that time. Although not all of the series is shown, it is nevertheless a “unique opportunity” to witness an in-depth presentation of the works as five peasant portraits as well as quite a number of preparatory drawings and oil studies are staged in addition to the three card player paintings. While the Courtauld owns two pieces out of the five (The Card Players and Man with a Pipe), most of the exhibition is loaned from elsewhere, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), the Musée d’Orsay (Paris) and the State Hermitage Museum (St. Petersburg).

Watch a video of The Card Players here.

The exhibition is currently open until 16th January, 2011 when it travels to NYC to be on display in the Metropolitan from 9th February to 8th May.