Cezanne Card Players

Small concentrated exhibition at the Courtauld Gallery looking at Cezanne’s pictures of card players.

The exhibition had five paintings plus preparatory works and highly finished drawings. It was a rare opportunity to see these works together and was a good study of how the pictures developed.

The models were farm workers on the family estate. The studies done individually then grouped in the imagination and studio. It is thought that he painted then as monumental figures suggesting an unchanging way of life.

The exhibition also included lovely studies of individual peasants in tones of blue and brown. Often shown in the studio with known works behind them.

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