How it arrives Cézanne in Basel? For the first time in its history, the Beyeler Foundation dedicates a major monographic exhibition to the post-Impressionist master, a central figure in the birth of modern art and a fundamental presence in the museum's collection. The exhibition, open from January 25 to May 25, 2026, brings together around eighty works including oil paintings and watercolours from important international museums and private collections.
The exhibition focuses on the French painter's final phase, a period in which his artistic language reached extraordinary maturity. Enigmatic portraits, bathing scenes, still lifes, and Provençal landscapes form a journey that highlights the radical nature of his pictorial research. It's no coincidence that the Spanish master Pablo Picasso he defined Cézanne as "the father of us all", recognizing his decisive influence on twentieth-century art.
Cézanne in Basel: dialogue between masterpieces and rarely exhibited works
The exhibition project brings together 58 oil paintings and 21 watercolors from museums and collections in Europe and the United States. The institutions involved include the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Musée d'Orsay, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art , Tate.
About half of the paintings also come from private collections and are rarely visible to the public. Among the most anticipated works are Bathers (1900–1906), presented for the first time ever. Other canvases had not been exhibited for many years, such as the Portrait of Paul Cézanne dated around 1895.
Particularly significant is the juxtaposition of two watercolour versions of the famous Boy with red waistcoat, as well as the joint presentation of two variants of the Card players: one preserved in Courtauld Gallery and the other at the Musée d'Orsay.
Provence and the mountain of Sainte-Victoire
One of the most evocative sections of the exhibition is dedicated to the landscapes of Provence, the artist's native land. In Cézanne's work, landscape is never simply a backdrop, but becomes a testing ground for a new conception of painting.
In particular the Sainte-Victoire Mountain, located near Aix-en-Provence, encompasses the painter's entire mature production. Between the 1880s and his death, Cézanne depicted it in approximately thirty oil paintings and numerous watercolors. The exhibition brings together nine views of the famous massif, illustrating how the same subject is reinterpreted through different perspectives, lighting, and color schemes.
In front of this mountain, the artist was looking for an answer to his fundamental question: how to represent the world as it is perceived? The solution came through a painting built on splashes of color and synthetic brush strokes, capable of generating volume and structure without relying on traditional perspective.
Cézanne in Basel: Bathers, Nature, and the Harmony of Form
Alongside the landscapes, another central theme is that of the bathers, a recurring motif in the artist's work. In these compositions, human figures merge with the surrounding landscape: the bodies follow the rhythm of the trees or seem to emerge from the earth, creating an almost organic fusion between man and nature.
These scenes represent one of the most innovative moments in Cézanne's painting, in which the tradition of the classical nude meets a modern conception of space and form. The tension between compositional stability and visual dynamism will become a benchmark for subsequent developments in 20th-century art.
Still lifes and reflections on transience
Still lifes occupy an equally central position in the exhibition. Fruit, dishes, loaves of bread, and draped fabrics become elements of a carefully studied pictorial construction. What appears to be a simple domestic composition actually reveals itself as a laboratory for analyzing color relationships, balance, and volume.
Alongside the famous compositions with apples and oranges there are also works dedicated to the motif of the skull, which introduces a more meditative dimension. In these paintings, the object becomes a symbol of the transience of life, while the attention to light and form remains identical to that given to everyday objects.
The creative process at the heart of the exhibition
The exhibition also underlines the importance of the painting processSome works appear deliberately unfinished: portions of the canvas remain visible and contribute to creating a new visual harmony. This "open ending" invites the viewer to mentally participate in the construction of the image.
At the end of the exhibition, the public can directly experience the watercolor technique in a studio space set up in the museum, inspired by the artist's working method.
A film to conclude the journey
The exhibition closes with the short film Cézanne on Art (2025), made by the contemporary painter Albert Ohlen together with the director Oliver HirschbiegelThe film, starring among others Sam riley, was filmed in the artist's symbolic places, between the Sainte-Victoire mountain and the Bibémus quarry.
The cinematographic work takes inspiration from the conversations between Cézanne and the writer Joachim Gasquet, creating an evocative portrait of the painter and the landscape that shaped his imagination. The film's world premiere takes place in the Fondation Beyeler.
A museum of art, architecture, and nature
Located in Riehen, near Basel, the Fondation Beyeler is one of Europe's leading exhibition centers for modern and contemporary art. The building, designed by architect Renzo Piano, is located in a natural park with ancient trees and water lily ponds, creating a constant dialogue between art and landscape.
The museum is also engaged in the construction of a new headquarters designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, intended to further strengthen the integration between architecture, nature and cultural activities.
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