Paul Cézanne
Ambroise Vollard gave Cezanne his first solo exhibition at 6 rue Laffitte in 1895, hanging around 150 canvases. He was fifty-six, and the show remade his standing among younger painters.
Galerie Ambroise Vollard, 6 rue Laffitte
Still standing
Outside only
Someone else
Ambroise Vollard's gallery, where in 1895 a young and untested dealer gave the fifty-six-year-old Paul Cézanne his first solo exhibition — and turned a painter most of Paris had written off into the most influential artist of the next generation.
- 6 rue Laffitte, 75009 Paris
- Ambroise Vollard's gallery; site of Cézanne's first solo exhibition in 1895
The place, briefly
By 1895 Paul Cézanne had not exhibited with a group for eighteen years, had never had a solo show, and was living mostly in Aix. Younger painters knew his work only through the canvases stacked in Père Tanguy's colour shop.
Ambroise Vollard was in his twenties, had opened his gallery on the rue Laffitte, and had almost nothing to lose. He tracked Cézanne down through Tanguy's stock and his son, gathered around 150 canvases, and hung them here.
The effect was not commercial so much as generational. Critics were divided and much of the public laughed, but the painters came, and what they saw reorganised what they thought painting could do. Matisse and Picasso both bought Cézannes; both spent years working through what the pictures implied. The line from this room to Cubism is short and direct.
Vollard went on to give Picasso and Matisse their own first shows, and to sit for portraits by both. Cézanne painted him too — reportedly making him pose more than a hundred times, and still declaring the shirt-front unfinished.
The gallery is gone. The building stands on a street that was the centre of the Paris art trade.
Key facts
- Ambroise Vollard, then in his twenties
- 1895 — Cézanne's first solo show, at fifty-six
- Around 150 canvases
- The younger painters; Matisse and Picasso both later owned Cézannes
- Vollard reportedly sat over a hundred times and the picture was left unfinished
- Gallery gone; exterior only
Timeline
Cézanne exhibits with the Impressionists for the last time.
Vollard gives him his first solo exhibition at 6 rue Laffitte.
Cézanne dies at Aix, by then the acknowledged model for the next generation.
On the map
Questions before you go
When was Cézanne's first solo exhibition?
1895, at Ambroise Vollard's gallery, 6 rue Laffitte. He was fifty-six and had never had one before.
Why did that show matter so much?
It was seen by the younger painters. Matisse and Picasso both went on to own Cézannes and to work through what his pictures implied — the route from this room to Cubism is direct.
People who knew this place
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