Études de têtes: Paul Cézanne fils et un enfant

Details

PAUL CÉZANNE (1839-1906)
Études de têtes: Paul Cézanne fils et un enfant
pencil on paper
4 7⁄8 x 8 1⁄2 in. (12.4 x 21.5 cm.)
Drawn circa 1886-1887

The three beautiful Cézanne drawings presented in this sale have been selected by gallerist, collector, author and publisher Karsten Schubert, just months before his untimely death in 2019.
A great connoisseur of Cézanne’s work, Schubert moved to England from Berlin after being lured by a friend to travel there, and fell immediately in love with London. There, he quickly became widely respected as a dealer in contemporary art, but his taste as a collector was much more conservative. He played an unparalleled part in promoting the group that would come to be known as the Young British Artists, and became a private artists' representative working with a select number of them, most famously Bridget Riley. In fact, it was through Riley, who had been deeply invested herself in Cézanne’s work form an early age, that Karsten Schubert came to a deeper understanding of the work of the French artist, whose drawings he started buying frantically, and continued to do so until the very end of his tragically interrupted life.
‘Cézanne always posed a problem for me.’ He would say in a conversation with the curator and art historian Yuval Etgar ‘That’s why I never managed to let go of him. On the contrary, the obsession seems only to be getting worse with time.’ […] ‘I bought my first Cézanne […] around 1983 or 1984. I did it out of sheer curiosity, not connoisseurship.’ (Exh. Cat., Cézanne at the Whitworth, the Karsten Schubert bequest, Manchester, 2019, p. 16).
Almost forty years later, the result of this passionate acquisition process – Karsten Schubert’s wonderful collection of Cézanne’s drawings and prints – has been generously bequeathed to the Whitworth Art Gallery through a process started in 2017 and completed just after his death. This important act of generosity means that the Whitworth now holds the best collection of Cézanne works on paper in the United Kingdom, including a version of every print produced by the artist.

Provenance

Paul Cézanne fils, Paris.
Paul Guillaume, Paris, by whom acquired from above, and thence by descent.
Adrien Chappuis, Tresserve, by whom acquired from the above in 1934.
Chappuis-Barut family, Chambéry, by descent from the above; sale, Christie's, London, 26 June 2003, lot 330.
Acquired at the above sale; sale, Christie's, London, 9 February 2006, lot 554.
Jill Newhouse Gallery, New York.
Galerie B. Weil, London.
Acquired from the above in 2019.

Literature

L. Venturi, Cézanne: Son art, son Œuvre, vol. I, Paris, 1936, no. 1290, p. 307 (illustrated vol. II, pl. 351; incorrectly described as 'Page XXVIII v.).
A. Chappuis, The Drawings of Paul Cézanne, A Catalogue Raisonné, London, 1973, no. 862, p. 21 (illustrated vol. II; titled 'Study of Heads').
W. Feilchenfeldt, J. Warman & D. Nash, The Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings of Paul Cézanne: An Online Catalogue Raisonné (www.cezannecatalogue.com), nos. FWN 3008-29b (illustrated). Accessed in January 2022.

Exhibited

Manchester, The Whitworth Art Gallery, Cézanne at the Whitworth, August 2019 - March 2020, no. 13, p. 64 (illustrated p. 65).

Conditions of sale

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Micol Flocchini Head of Day Sale

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Lot Essay

Known for his sketches of family members, Cézanne’s drawing of his son Paul was one of many created during a particularly tumultuous period in the artist’s personal life, including a breakdown of his close friendship with Zola, and the death of his father.
Despite the still-life nature of the drawing, pertaining to Cézanne’s affection for the genre even when sketching live subjects, one can still garner a certain sense of paternal tenderness for his sitting subject. This is clear in the care taken to outline the features and the expressive hatching to give depth to his son’s features, contrasting with the less developed sketch of the infant’s head, sketched to the side of the drawing of Paul’s face. Although more complex in the angle, from below the chin, it is his son’s solemn downturned head with a focused expression which leaves an impression.
Using blue paper instead of the traditional white is an interesting choice on Cézanne’s part, one that gives more depth to the shadow on the faces but also leaves us with a sense of melancholic tenderness.

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