Paul Cezanne is everywhere in Aix-en-Provence: there are streets named after him as well as a school, a cinema and even a sandwich (a version of traditional pan bagnat but with goat’s cheese instead of tuna). And from late June, the whole city will go Cezanne mad, as the painter’s atelier, north of the centre, and the family home to the west reopen after an eight-year restoration.
But during Cezanne’s lifetime, and for years after his death in 1906, Aix seemed at pains to ignore the artist later called the “father of modern art”. When his widow, Hortense, offered several paintings to the city’s main Musée Granet, director Henri Pontier declared that Cezanne paintings would enter the gallery only over his dead body.
