Home > ArtoftheDay Weekly > #366 - from 27 November 2014 to 3 December 2014 > Feminine version of Cézanne
Art Of The Day Weekly
#366 - from 27 November 2014 to 3 December 2014
Paul Cézanne, Madame Cézanne in a Red Armchair (detail), ca. 1877. Oil on canvas. MFA, Boston, Bequest of Robert T. Paine, 2nd
Feminine version of Cézanne
NEW YORK – The painter who was to revolutionize modern art complied with the most bourgeois conventions in his private life. Cézanne (1839-1906) was ashamed of having a mistress younger than himself and a son to boot and did not dare introduce them to his parents. He did not marry the mother until 1886, when their son was fourteen years old. Hortense Fiquet (1850-1922) was discreet and acted as a subordinate, which led everyone to believe she was unimportant. In reality this exhibition of 24 of the 29 portraits Cézanne made of her show she was his major model.
• Madame Cézanne at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, from 19 November 2014 to 15 March 2015.