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Saving Cezanne's studio: the author recalls his youthful efforts to preserve Cezanne's final studio in Aix-en-Provence, and the disillusion that followed his successful campaign - Memoir

When for the first time I came to Aix-en-Provence on Monday, Sept. 13, 1950, I was seized at once by a sense of unique enchantment destined to last a lifetime. To those who know the place, I need not explain why, and to those who don't, I can only extend my heartfelt commiseration. There was for me, to be sure, something more to Aix than the time-defiant loveliness and splendor of the town itself, because it stands apart in the history of Western civilization as the birthplace and lifelong home of Paul Cezanne, the greatest painter to have lived since Rembrandt, an opinion, indeed, with which from the depths of his great and desolate heart the artist himself humbly but categorically concurred.

From my early adolescence I had admired the works of Cezanne in New York's museums more than those of any other painter of modern times, and thus the delight of discovering Aix's beauty was somewhat overshadowed by the excitement of Cezanne's presence. He had been dead, of course, for 45 years, but while still alive had walked these unchanged streets in lonesome dignity and painted many masterpieces in the nearby countryside dominated by the symbolic peak of Mont Sainte-Victoire.

What I consequently wanted more than anything else that afternoon was some sense of a living rapport with the spirit of that supreme creator in the town where he had never as yet been celebrated by a single exhibition. I recalled having read in the biography of Cezanne by John Rewald that in the last years of the artist's life he had built on a slope overlooking the northern outskirts of the city a studio in which he had painted many of his greatest compositions, notably the final large pictures of female bathers. In another book I had long pored over photographs of the exterior and interior of this isolated building, and it was there, I thought, if it still stood on the obscure roadway called the Chemin des Lauves, that I might hope to encounter some feeling of vital rapprochement with the great man who had enriched my life.

So I walked up past the cathedral, keeping in a northerly direction, crossed a wide boulevard and came to the apparent outskirts of Aix. Not knowing the way to my destination, I went into a grocery store to inquire. A small and bent old woman stood behind the counter. She must have been well over 70, I thought, and therefore would have been about 30 when Cezanne died. I said, "Could you tell me where to find Cezanne's studio?" "Cezanne?" she murmured with a frown of puzzlement. "Cezanne? All I can tell you is that he's not from this neighborhood." "Well then," I persisted, "maybe you can tell me how to find the Chemin des Lauves."

This she did irritably explain, and I was lucky, because it wasn't far. The Chemin des Lauves was a narrow, unpaved road rising up an overgrown hillside, and Cezanne's studio, which I recognized at once from familiar photographs, stood by itself to the left about halfway to the hilltop, surrounded by a masonry wall. A wooden gate was ajar. I went inside. The building was not large, two stories in height, with a door and two windows at ground level and three windows above. When I knocked, an aged, white-haired woman wearing a tattered apron appeared. She amicably confirmed that this had indeed been Cezanne's studio, which occupied the entire second floor. The proprietor was a man named Marcel Provence, who revered the artist's memory and had preserved his studio exactly as it had always been during the artist's lifetime. I asked whether I might be allowed to visit the studio. Oh, certainly, the old woman replied. It was very rare that anyone interested in the artist came along. Monsieur Provence happened to be absent, but he would gladly have welcomed me had he been at home. Gesturing toward a curved stairway, she told me to go up and look around to my heart's content.

I did so, and it was one of the most exalting, deeply moving experiences of my life. The large, high room was in considerable disorder, but it was Cezanne's disorder, and one felt that he might have stepped outside but a few minutes before to paint a watercolor of his beloved mountain viewed from the nearby hilltop. The artist's easel, paint box, palettes, paintbrushes and dried tubes of paint occupied a corner. The north wall held a vast window. Upon a long shelf against the west wall were aligned many bottles, vases, dishes, sugar bowls, candlesticks, skulls and other items instantly familiar to anyone who knew the many majestic still lifes in which they appeared. There were in addition several pieces of furniture also familiar from still lifes painted before the studio was built. The artist had obviously brought with him to Les Lauves numerous material objects that had become visually vital to him. In a corner opposite the door there even remained several vests, overcoats and a hat recognizable as Cezanne's from the photographs taken by Emile Bernard and K.X. Roussel. Indeed, as if by a miracle, I had come to the place, the only place still surviving, where one could commune with the spirit of the great artist in the unchanged surroundings that had witnessed and nourished him. I felt that I was breathing the very same air which had enlivened the respiration of the artist. This was a grand moment of fantasy; it was sustained by the certainty that art is itself the essential breath of life.

When after 30 or 40 minutes, I returned downstairs, I thanked the old woman, who bid me to return whenever I cared to. I realized while walking back to the town that somehow that brief visit would make an indelible mark upon my future.

Six weeks later I sailed for America. The year 1951 was spent in travel through Spain, France and Germany, but Aug. 29 I returned to Aix-en-Provence and once again visited the studio, finding it wonderfully unchanged and learning that Marcel Provence had meanwhile died. It was then that I thought something should be done to preserve it forever as a living monument to the human capacity for surpassing the banal limitations of mortal life.

A few weeks later, in Paris, I went to see Georges Salles, director of French Museums, a charming gentleman with whom I had formed a warm but casual friendship, having been introduced by Picasso. I was touched by the fact that in his office at the Louvre hung but a single work of art: a small etching of a girl's head by Cezanne, executed in 1873 under the tutelage of Dr. Gachet at Auvers-sur-Oise. I related my visit to Cezanne's studio and asked whether the French Museums might not eventually intervene to save for posterity this unique locale where so intense an evocation of Cezanne's spirit still survived. He replied that the prospect was highly appealing to him personally, but that he would have little hope of persuading superior authorities to subsidize it. Still, he promised to make inquiries at Aix-en-Provence and advise me of the situation there as concerned possible preservation of the studio. Some months passed before he invited me to tea in his beautiful apartment in the Louvre and told me that the studio was for sale for a sum then approximately between 25 and 30 thousand American dollars. At the time this was an appreciable amount but for what was at stake, it seemed to me almost trifling--a bargain in cultural value. Wouldn't it be possible, I suggested, to raise such an amount by appealing to French philanthropists and owners of works by Cezanne? Monsieur Salles suavely smiled in an expression of ironic skepticism. His compatriots, he said with a sigh, were rarely inclined to part with money for charitable purposes that would bring them but slight public prestige. He suggested that I try to raise money for preservation of the studio in America, where funds for such purposes were much more generously forthcoming. Meanwhile, he would keep an eye on happenings in Aix-en-Provence and try to prevent the studio's sale until, if possible, the purchase funds could be raised in America. For my part, I promised to do all I could to achieve that goal, though the promise must have seemed pretentious, to say the least, coming from a foreigner aged only 29.

It was not until November 1952 that I was able to actively initiate efforts in America to raise the money necessary for saving Cezanne's studio. I realized at once that in order to successfully solicit contributions for that purpose, it would be imperative to arrange somehow that such contributions could be deducted as charitable donations from the donors' income taxes, and in order to do this I would need the endorsement and assistance of the cultural attache of the French embassy, whose office, I learned, was fortunately in New York, where I was then living. Therefore I applied for an appointment with this gentleman, Monsieur Pierre Douzelot.

He received me courteously, but after a stilted talk of 10 minutes, during which it was evident he had little feeling for Cezanne, he introduced me to his assistant, Madame Anne Minor, who would be better able to assist me, he said. And he was more right than probably he ever knew or cared, for without Madame Minor's efficient and charming cooperation, the project would surely have come to nothing. She proved herself indispensable on that very first day by introducing me to two highly influential ladies from France who happened by chance to be in New York. They were Madame Bouchot-Saupique and Madame Guinet-Pechadre, the former being chief curator of the Cabinet des Dessins at the Louvre and also assistant to Monsieur Jacques Jaujard, director general of arts and letters, while the latter was director of the museums in Nice but more influential in national cultural matters than that provincial post might suggest. All three of these ladies were most enthusiastic about my project and promised to assist in any way they could. It so happened that Madame Bouchot-Saupique and Madame Guinet-Pechadre were in America to solicit loans for an important retrospective exhibition of Cezanne's works at Aix-en-Provence, the first ever to take place in the artist's native town. Madame Minor promised that she would find some way to arrange that contributions be deductible for income-tax purposes, though this would be difficult in the case of a foreign cultural charity. But she would manage, she said, and she did.

My next step was to make the acquaintance of the foremost living authority on Cezanne's work and obtain his assistance. This person, of course, was John Rewald, who had recently published not only a biography of the painter but also a definitive history of Impressionism. He agreed by telephone to receive me at his home in the afternoon of Dec. 20, 1952. The walls of his apartment were hung with a splendid collection of 19th- and 20th-century French drawings, which I much admired to his evident satisfaction. As soon as I broached the purpose of my visit, however, his manner altered abruptly. He declared that he would have nothing to do with my project and if the French wished to make a museum of Cezanne's studio, which he had visited before the war when nobody was interested in it, then they could, and should, pay for it themselves instead of begging money from the United States not only to revive their ruined economy but to resolve run-down palaces and chateaux. I was astonished and taken aback by this outburst, and realized that without Rewald's support, my project would be seriously compromised. However, having made a start, I was reluctant to abandon the effort and asked whether someone else of distinction might be disposed to help. Rewald shrugged and frowned, but said that I could always apply to a man named Gerstle Mack, who had, after all, published a biography of Cezanne in the '30s. And that was the conclusion of our interview.

I found Gerstle Mack in the telephone book, made an appointment and went to see him, a rather weary man past middle age but amiable and prepared to give advice. When I related the details of my disappointing visit to John Rewald, he replied that the younger man's refusal to help was regrettable but understandable, and proceeded to explain why. Rewald was German, but from an early age had been passionately interested in French Impressionist painting, especially the work of Cezanne. As a student aged only 23, he had visited Aix and its environs, taking many invaluable photographs of the sites that had served as models for Cezanne's landscape paintings. Being Jewish, he had taken up residence in France as a refugee, and published just before the outbreak of the war his thesis on Cezanne--the life, work and friendship with Zola. When hostilities became serious, the French police had summarily detained all German citizens resident in France, including many eminent Jewish refugees, Rewald among others, and herded them into internment camps. Had they been found there by the Nazis, or even by certain elements of the servile French regime, what fate these Jews might subsequently have suffered was only too certain and sinister. However, many of them were able to escape and make their way somehow or other out of France, some even reaching the United States. But many of these fortunate survivors brought with them a bitter and abiding resentment against France, supposedly a time-honored land of sanctuary, which by egregious disregard for their status as refugees had placed them in dire peril. That, said Mr. Mack, was the explanation for John Rewald's refusal to cooperate. As for himself, he considered my undertaking honorable and ambitious, albeit probably impracticable, but he would happily give what help he could, though this would doubtless turn out to be little. And it was.

In order to solicit contributions for a cause even so deserving as the preservation of Cezanne's studio and its invaluable contents, I knew that I would have to make my appeal in the name of a group of sponsors so prestigious that their repute alone would be persuasive. So I set out to form what I named the Cezanne Memorial Committee. As its leader, I invited, and received by return mail (with a check), the collaboration of Paul J. Sachs, professor of fine arts at Harvard University, who had trained and inspired many art historians, curators and collectors during the crucial years of growth of American art museums. Next I appealed to the distinguished and wealthy collectors Carroll Tyson, John Hay Whitney, Henry P. McIlhenny, John Newberry and Erich Maria Remarque. Word of what I was doing came quickly, of course, to the attention of John Rewald. He got in touch with me to say that he had reconsidered his impulsive refusal to cooperate and would now be disposed to help insofar as it was possible. It was obvious that he had realized how inexpedient it would be for him personally to allow anything important concerning Cezanne to take place without his active participation. I asked to add his name as a member of my committee, to which he readily agreed. Naturally I added Gerstle Mack, as well, and placed my own name last, listing myself as secretary of the committee, since I would be signing the letters requesting donations and was quite unknown.

Having in the meantime obtained a long list of possible donors from a friend and curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art named Theodore Rousseau, himself the owner of a splendid watercolor by Cezanne, I suggested to John Rewald that, inasmuch as he was personally acquainted with many of the persons named, it might be politic for him rather than myself to appeal to them. He agreed to do this, and it is a testimony to his influence that several of the most generous contributions came in response to his intervention.

Some 300 letters requesting donations were sent out before the middle of March 1953. The speed and volume of the response were astonishing. Letters containing checks for amounts both large and small poured almost daily into the office of Madame Minor at 972 Fifth Avenue. The largest gift contributed was a thousand dollars, by no means a negligible sum at the time, and the smallest was five dollars, sent by a lady for whom, as it happened, charity for herself would have been appropriate yet who cared about genius. In all there were 114 contributions, every one of them from Americans save that from a Swiss art dealer to whom the appeal had been sent and whose passion for Cezanne bore generosity from overseas.

By early May the amount needed was in the bank. I never knew exactly how much we were able to raise. Madame Minor managed the accounts. It was above $25,000, anyway, and something less than $30,000, more than enough to purchase the studio and pay for a few necessary repairs. There was a reception to celebrate the success of the undertaking. Monsieur Douzelot and John Rewald made speeches. It had all seemed so wonderfully simple. Little did we dream what difficulties and disillusions lay in wait.

The Cezanne exhibition that had been organized for the Musee Granet in Aix by Madame Guinet-Pechadre and Madame Bouchot-Saupique was scheduled to open on June 29. Madame Minor told me that the French government would be pleased to invite me to be present and to sail for Le Havre as a guest aboard the Ile de France on June 11. I eagerly accepted. Before departing, she added, the French ambassador, Monsieur Henri Bonnet, wished to receive me for tea in Washington in order to express official appreciation for the cultural contribution to his nation which I had initiated. Consequently, I flew to Washington, drank tea for 20 minutes with the elegant ambassador, who thanked me for my endeavor and took occasion to express the gratitude of his country for the aid that mine had given to France, not only in the recent war but subsequently. I attempted to respond in kind by remarking that, after all, America owed its independence very largely to French support. There was some mention of Cezanne, then I flew back to New York.

After a tranquil voyage I arrived in Aix on June 27. That evening the prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhone Departement, Monsieur Paira, gave an official dinner to celebrate the imminent opening of the Cezanne exhibition. The mayor of Aix, Monsieur Mouret, was also present, and all the other guests, with their wives, were governing officials of one sort or another save the director of the Musee Granet, Louis Malbos. I was the only foreigner present, seated at the end of the table, where nearly no one bothered to speak to me. In any case, the conversation was concerned almost entirely with political affairs, especially the growing agitation in France's Algerian colony of the native population, which apparently threatened to become openly rebellious. I knew nothing about any of this. There was very little mention of Cezanne, and none whatsoever of his studio, which evidently interested nobody present.

The inauguration of the Cezanne exhibition on June 29 was well attended by persons of importance, and it was a noble display of the artist's genius in the city that had mocked him during his lifetime. There were 24 paintings of all periods, including several of his greatest works, plus 26 watercolors and drawings. At the luncheon afterward I made the acquaintance of two persons who would later prove indispensable to the successful outcome of the effort to save Cezanne's studio. They were Monsieur Martinaud-Deplat, a native of Aix and at that time minister of the interior, and his wife, who would turn out to be especially helpful.

When I returned to Paris on July 12, I promptly made an appointment to meet with Georges Salles, looking forward with much satisfaction to announcing that ample funds for the purchase of the studio were ready and waiting in New York. He greeted this news with congratulations and some surprise that the money had been so quickly forthcoming. I asked when and how he wished the total sum to be forwarded to him, or to the credit of the French Museums, so that the purchase and repair of the studio could be undertaken promptly. Monsieur Salles's expression of embarrassed confusion was immediate, and he was quick to assert that under no circumstances could the organization of French Museums accept Cezanne's studio as a gift, for this would entail a commitment to undertake its maintenance in perpetuity as a site open to the public. The museums for which the government was already responsible more than overtaxed available funds. Much as he admired the Master of Aix and would be delighted to see his studio preserved, he was absolutely and unhappily unable to offer any assistance or, indeed, advice, save to suggest that I consult Madame Bouchot-Saupique. In order to do this I had only to climb several flights of stairs to the Cabinet des Dessins.

Madame Bouchot-Saupique perfectly understood the position of her director, but she thought that perhaps Jacques Jaujard might be of assistance and asked me to come to his office in the rue de Grenelle three days later at 10 A.M. Monsieur Jaujard was cordial. However, he told me that despite a post of considerable authority, he had attempted in vain to prevail upon the prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhone, the mayor of Aix-en-Provence or the rector of the University of Aix-Marseille to accept Cezanne's studio as a gift outright and guarantee thenceforth to maintain it in perpetuity. I was dumbfounded, having expected, and rather been led to expect, that the French would be overjoyed to accept a memorial to the man who was arguably their greatest painter. But if nobody was prepared to accept the gift, I exclaimed, what was to be done with the money so generously contributed for this specific purpose? Monsieur Jaujard shrugged. But he had an idea. It so happened that the minister of the interior came from Aix. His position was one of very considerable power. If he couldn't bring sufficient pressure to bear in order to force acceptance of the gift, nobody could. Or maybe his wife would prove even more persuasive, as she very efficiently managed many delicate and refractory matters for her busy husband. He amiably volunteered to make an appointment for me with the minister. That gentleman, however, was on vacation till mid-September.

So I waited. On Sept. 25, 1953, I presented myself at the Place Beauvau, where I was received by Monsieur Martinaud-Deplat in a very grand office after a lengthy wait. When he had listened with evident impatience to what I had to say, he expressed guarded sympathy for the project and then, as Jaujard had predicted, advised me to be in touch with his wife, who would probably be more efficient in securing the commitment necessary. He wrote her telephone number on a slip of paper, and our interview was at an end, having lasted barely a quarter of an hour.

Five days later Madame Martinaud-Deplat agreed to have luncheon with me at Lasserre, an excellent restaurant considerably beyond my means. But by that time I was desperately anxious to secure the effective--and successful--support of anybody at all. Should I fail now, after so much effort, optimism and faith in the transcendent effect of genius, I feared that all the trust and generosity devoted to this idealistic project would have been for nothing. Somehow I had to make myself modestly but indisputably convincing to someone I'd met but once. Madame Martinand-Deplat was late, chic and inquisitive. How had this business begun? What were my motives? Who was to profit? And what guarantee was there that any public interest would ever be forthcoming? Renoir, after all, was a much more popular painter, and nobody was interested in his nearby residence and studio at Cagnes. I tried to answer her questions as simply and sincerely as I could, dwelling, perhaps at excessive length, on the spiritual and intellectual grandeur of Cezanne's works. I did my best, and the lady studied me with intimidating intensity. By the time we had finished dessert, and while we sipped our coffee, I did not feel very hopeful. Madame Martinaud-Deplat remarked that it was unlikely very many people would care to visit Cezanne's studio and that the project would consequently require more financial support than it would repay in public appreciation. It was, in short, a labor of love for the happy few. I frankly replied that such had been my expectation and hope from the beginning. If more than a few hundred people per year eventually wished to visit the studio, I would be both surprised and, to tell the truth, disillusioned. My guest eyed me in silence for too long, I felt, to be reassuring, then thanked me for the luncheon and said that she'd be in touch with me when, and if, necessary. I sat pensively in the elegant restaurant for a time after her departure.

On the first of October, I left Paris for a month, visiting Italy, Greece and Egypt, and when I thought of Cezanne's studio and the money waiting in suspension in New York, I was preparing myself for disappointment. Oddly enough, I felt that I must have understated the power of Cezanne's art, failing precisely in what I most believed in. A letter from Madame Martinaud-Deplat was awaiting my return, advising me that she had prevailed upon Rector Blache and Dean Gros of the University of Aix-Marseille to accept responsibility for the studio and in my absence had instructed Madame Minor in New York to forward all the available funds to the university's credit in Aix. Consequently, my original plan to save the studio would be fulfilled, and she amiably added that her resolve to bring pressure to bear upon the reluctant university had been decisively stimulated by the conviction and sincerity with which I had spoken of the painter and his cultural supremacy during our luncheon.

So the project had come to grand fruition, after all. I wrote to John Rewald with the good news.

In early April 1954, I visited Aix, met with Rector Blache and Dean Gros at the university offices, and perceived that they had by now accepted responsibility for the studio with a becoming appreciation of cultural honor. Cleaning and repair had already gone forward in Les Lauves, in the garden as well as the interior, and it was expected that the official opening of the memorial to Cezanne could take place in July. I went to the studio, where several workmen were busy, and already recognized--some what to my dismay--that the spiritual presence of the great painter would be less exalting in the well-ordered aura of a museum than it had been in the breathtaking and splendid mess I had first encountered four years before. The happy few would probably be fewer and less happy than I'd hoped, but there would be some, at least, to sense a living rapport with the spirit of Cezanne in the very room where his greatest, final paintings had been created.

The official inauguration took place on Thursday, July 8, 1954, in the late morning. Since the project had been conceived and money contributed in the United States, the American ambassador, Douglas Dillon, had come from Paris to preside at the formal presentation. Rector Blache graciously accepted. Madame Bouchot-Saupique, Madame Guinet-Pechadre and Georges Salles were all present. Only Madame Minor was regrettably missing. And of course there was John Rewald, to whom the glory of Cezanne owed so much, and who was presented with the Legion of Honor that morning, an award long overdue for one who had already done so much to foster the appreciation of French art. After the ceremony there was a grand luncheon at the Hotel du Roy Rene, and so the saving of Cezanne's studio became henceforth a fait accompli.

A fait accompli, alas, which little by little undid the ideal accomplishment of what, after all, had been another era. Van Gogh was the idol of the public, and Picasso the world-famous iconoclast. Who could have foreseen in 1954 that Cezanne in a decade would surpass both as a heroic figure? And what was it that brought about this radical change in public opinion? It was money, of course. Cezanne's prices began to be reported on the front pages of newspapers. Popular magazines competed to reproduce and praise his most expensive canvases. And when Paul Mellon paid close to a million dollars at the Goldschmidt sale in 1958 for The Boy in the Red Vest, the general public--even if indifferent to the painting--decided that the artist definitely deserved respect. And with respect came curiosity.

Gradually, attention was paid to the fact that there survived in Aix-en-Provence the building where a colossal fortune in works of art had been created, albeit derided at the time. Meanwhile, the site had been desecrated by hideous apartment buildings thrown up all around the studio by unscrupulous developers. The roadway had been widened and paved, and presently received a prestigious name: the Avenue Paul Cezanne. Aix began to be proud of the artist now bringing more fame to the city than its previous favorite son, Honore Mirabeau, the fiery orator and hypocritical revolutionary. And so the studio became a magnetic attraction for visitors to the town, whether or not they knew much about art in general or Cezanne in particular.

Soon the municipality of Aix realized that the formerly obscure, undesirable little building possessed an unforeseen power to attract tourists, a species of traveler gradually beginning to translate into big business and important investment. So the municipal authorities forgot that they had previously spurned the acquisition, and in 1969 told the representatives of the university that they would henceforth assume responsibility for the future maintenance of the studio. Signs appeared in the town providing directions to the Avenue Paul Cezanne. Guide books recommended visits. A large panel on the highway passing Aix advertised "The Landscapes of Cezanne." Buses at the studio gate unloaded herds of tourists so numerous that only a select number for a limited time were allowed to linger in the studio room. On the lower floor a shop sold books, reproductions, postcards, souvenirs. The studio had become a paying proposition, and the municipality turned it over to the tourist office. That was the cruel irony and sad betrayal of the fait accompli.

My final visit to the studio took place on July 22, 1998, almost half a century after the first. It was dispiriting. The chatter of the tourist crowd made meditation on the meaning of the place impossible. I asked the curator how many visitors the studio received per year, and she said about 80,000. And I, in my naive dream, had hoped for a few hundred. How many out of 80,000 could be expected to sense any living rapport with the spirit of the artist amid the crowds of the merely curious, who would understand no more about Cezanne's mastery and grandeur than if they were visiting the cave at Altamira? Saving Cezanne's studio, I thought, had been a thrilling dream that, for a time, seemed to have come true. But then followed the chagrin of awakening to the loss of almost every cultural value which had been the saving sustenance of Cezanne's sublime and invincible aspiration. In his studio, to be sure, remain the objects and implements that served him in the making of masterpieces. But the artist himself, his pure and deathless spirit, is no longer believably present. How could I have guessed half a century ago that saving Cezanne's studio would ultimately entail the loss of so precious and distinctive an aura emanating from that humble source?

A two-day seminar on Cezanne's studio will take place July 10-11 at the Centre des Congres in Aix-en-Provence. For more information, contact the Atelier Cezanne at (33) (0)4 42 21 06 53 or infos@atelier-cezanne.com.

Author: James Lord is the author of Giacometti: A Biography.

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