Atelier Cézanne

The Atelier de Cézanne sits on the wooded Lauves hill north of Aix-en-Provence in a modest two-storey house that Paul Cézanne had built for himself in 1902, after years of painting outdoors in the Provençal landscape. Here he completed some of the most consequential works of his late career, including the final versions of the Large Bathers, canvases that would go on to directly shape Picasso's path toward Cubism. The studio has been kept close to its original state: his easel, paint pots, work jacket, and the bowls of fruit and ceramic vessels he obsessively arranged as still-life motifs remain in place. Small and unhurried, the atelier offers an unusually intimate encounter with a painter's working life — a contrast to the grander museum experience of his finished canvases.