The Paris AtlasCharting the artists, works, and places worth returning to.

Apartment · Montmartre (18th) · 18e arrondissement

Villa des Arts, 15 rue Hégésippe-Moreau

The buildingStill standing
Getting inOutside only
What's there nowArtists' studios

A private complex of purpose-built artists' studios, still in use as studios and not open to visitors.

The purpose-built studio complex below Montmartre where Paul Cézanne worked in 1898 and 1899 — one of his last Paris addresses, and where he painted the portrait of Ambroise Vollard.

Address
15 rue Hégésippe-Moreau, 75018 Paris
Years
Cézanne worked here in 1898 and 1899
IllustrationBright present-day color view of the Villa des Arts gate beneath a blue sky

The surviving gate and cobbled approach in contemporary daylight, viewed from the public street.

Editorial illustration

The place, briefly

The Villa des Arts is a block of purpose-built artists' studios put up in the 1880s on a lane below Montmartre: high north-facing windows, generous ceilings, and rents that a working painter could meet. Renoir, Signac and later Duchamp all had space there.

Paul Cézanne worked here in 1898 and 1899, by then almost sixty and finally, after Vollard's 1895 exhibition, a name that younger painters spoke about with something close to awe.

The portrait of Vollard was painted in this studio. Vollard's own account of the sittings became one of the standard anecdotes about Cézanne's method — more than a hundred sessions, the sitter required to hold still to an inhuman degree, and the picture finally abandoned with two small patches of bare canvas on the hand, which Cézanne said he could not fill without starting again.

He left Paris for good soon afterwards and spent his last years in Aix. The studios are still studios and are private.

Key facts

What it is
A block of purpose-built artists' studios from the 1880s
Cézanne
Worked here in 1898 and 1899
Painted here
The portrait of Ambroise Vollard
The sittings
Reportedly over a hundred, and the canvas still left unfinished
Others who worked there
Renoir, Signac, later Duchamp
Access
Private working studios — exterior only

In images

The protected studio complex today, still entered through its wrought-iron arch and still private.Editorial illustration
The surviving gate and cobbled approach in contemporary daylight, viewed from the public street.Editorial illustration
Evidence-led reconstruction of the studio complex around the beginning of Cézanne's tenancy.Artistic reconstruction
The largely surviving architecture in natural period color; residents, activity and young planting are interpretive.Artistic reconstruction
A closer public-side view of the ironwork, stone posts and address that identify the private complex.Editorial illustration
A threshold view toward the working courtyard and exterior stair, without entering the private studios.Editorial illustration
A plausible working courtyard in 1898, populated with invented artists and blank materials rather than known works.Artistic reconstruction

Timeline

  1. 1898–1899

    Cézanne works at the Villa des Arts and paints Vollard's portrait.

  2. 1899

    He moves to the rue Ballu, and soon afterwards leaves Paris for Aix.

  3. 1906

    He dies at Aix.

On the map

Questions before you go

Where did Cézanne paint the portrait of Vollard?

At his studio in the Villa des Arts, 15 rue Hégésippe-Moreau, in 1899. Vollard described sitting more than a hundred times, and the canvas was left with unpainted patches on the hand.

Can you visit the Villa des Arts?

No. It remains a private complex of working artists' studios.

People who knew this place

Illustrated portrait of Paul Cézanne

Paul Cézanne

French · Painter

Cezanne worked at the Villa des Arts studios in 1898 and 1899, and painted the portrait of Ambroise Vollard there.

Within walking distance

Bright present-day color view of the Monoprix corner at 43–45 avenue de Clichy

Restaurant · Batignolles (17th)

Grand Bouillon-Restaurant du Chalet, 43 avenue de Clichy

The cheap eating-house where Vincent van Gogh hung an exhibition of his own work and his friends' in November 1887 — the show at which Seurat and Gauguin turned up, and where the road to Arles effectively begins.

Visit the place
Colour illustration of the modern streetscape at the approximate former site of Café Guerbois

Café · Batignolles (17th)

Café Guerbois

The Batignolles café where Édouard Manet held court through the 1860s and the painters who would become the Impressionists argued out what they were doing. Its address has since been renamed and renumbered, and nothing of it survives.

Visit the place
Color present-day editorial view of cream residential façades along the narrow rue Nollet

Hotel · Batignolles

15 rue Nollet

A surviving private address in Batignolles where a vanished working people's hotel gave the young American poet Langston Hughes his real-life version of a Paris garret in 1924.

Visit the place
Bright color view of Wepler's red-awning facade beneath a blue Paris sky

Restaurant · Place de Clichy

Brasserie Wepler

The big brasserie on the place de Clichy that Henry Miller used as his base during the Clichy years later recreated in Quiet Days in Clichy — somewhere to write, to wait for people, and to watch the square. Currently closed for renovation.

Visit the place
References

References

The sources below include histories, archival materials, scholarly research, and official records that informed this page. They document Villa des Arts, 15 rue Hégésippe-Moreau, the people connected to it, and its place in Paris.

  1. 1Cézanne à Paris: chronologie et adresses

    Website
    Société Paul Cézanne
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Villa des Arts, 15 rue Hégésippe-Moreau page.

    View source

  2. 2Paul Cézanne

    Website
    The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Villa des Arts, 15 rue Hégésippe-Moreau page.

    View source

  1. 3Paul Cézanne (1839–1906)

    Website
    The Metropolitan Museum of Art
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Villa des Arts, 15 rue Hégésippe-Moreau page.

    View source

  2. 4Portraits by Cézanne

    Website
    Musée d'Orsay
    Used for

    Web source consulted for documented facts and historical context presented on the Villa des Arts, 15 rue Hégésippe-Moreau page.

    View source
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Why these sources are here

These references provide the documented foundation for this page's history and context. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.

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