Cézanne and the Modern
This fall, visitors to the Princeton University Art Museum have the opportunity to view remarkable works from the Pearlman Collection by Vincent van Gogh, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Édouard Manet, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaïm Soutine, and—especially—Paul Cézanne. The works return to Princeton, where they have been on loan since 1976, fresh from an international tour with record-breaking attendance that included the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, the Musée Granet in Cézanne’s hometown of Aix-en-Provence, the High Museum in Atlanta, and the Vancouver Art Gallery. In the past year and a half, more than 440,000 people flocked to these venues, sometimes waiting in long lines, to experience Henry Pearlman’s particular vision of modern art that privileged the work of Post-Impressionist and early twentieth-century masters and favored strong compositions, vibrant colors, and visible brushstrokes.
Without question, the twenty-four drawings, watercolors, and oil paintings by Cézanne form the centerpiece of the Pearlman Collection—particularly the sixteen watercolors that are among the finest and best-preserved compilations of the artist’s work in that medium. In the exhibition at Princeton, the oil paintings and watercolors are interspersed, which follows the artist’s working practice. Cézanne explored in watercolor many of the same technical questions of color and composition that he sought to elucidate in his oil paintings. Visitors to the exhibition can witness the dialogue between the two media in the many works that highlight the same or similar subjects in oil and watercolor.
In order to prepare the exhibition and publish the collection, the Museum assembled an exceptional group of specialists—including art historians from Princeton University’s Department of Art and Archaeology, the Museum’s curators, conservators, and independent scholars—who undertook new research for the catalogue Cézanne and the Modern. These investigations included technical analyses and comprehensive studies of the provenance of each object. These efforts yielded important discoveries; indeed, some paintings have been retitled or redated thanks to this work. Perhaps the most dramatic revelations came through x-radiography of key works, which revealed, among other things, that the perpetually destitute Modigliani painted Jean Cocteau over another portrait, probably a canvas borrowed from his artist friend Moïse Kisling.
Henry Pearlman and the development of his collection were a principal focus of the project research. Princeton University Associate Professor Rachael Z. DeLue, in her essay “The Pearlman Collection in Context,” offers perceptive comparisons between his approach to collecting and those of his contemporaries, such as Albert Barnes. Pearlman may not always have had the deepest pockets, but his exquisite taste and a canny sense of the art of the deal helped him assemble a group of works notable for their exceptional quality. A detailed chronology of Henry Pearlman’s life and the development and exhibition of the collection gives insights into the works and serves as an important contribution to the scholarship on American twentieth-century collecting practices.
The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation—the steward of the collection whose mission is to broaden the public reach and deepen the personal experience of art while conserving the original works in its collection for future audiences—has served as the Museum’s partner at every phase of the exhibition’s development. Made up of two generations of Pearlman descendants, the Foundation board have given generously of their time and their knowledge of the collection’s history. Several members of the family agreed to take part in taped interviews that gave the Museum valuable insights into Henry and Rose, not just into their collecting but into who they were as people. Some of those recollections can be found on the special website developed for Cézanne and the Modern (artmuseum.princeton.edu/cezanne-modern). This resource, available in English and French, provides information on many of the Pearlman objects as well as expert commentaries and can be accessed by smartphones in the exhibition or from any tablet or desktop.
Henry Pearlman considered living with these works of art a privilege that enhanced his life. Perhaps hoping that others might share that experience, during his lifetime he lent the objects in the collection widely to institutions across the country. When Henry died suddenly in 1974, his widow Rose found a home for much of the collection as a long-term loan to the Princeton University Art Museum, which has cared for it to this day. Since that time, forty graduating classes of Princeton students have been fortunate to study these works as part of their courses or simply to interact with the objects informally in the galleries. The scholarship of the present project would have appealed to Henry’s interest in the study of the artists whom he loved; he might, however, have preferred those more informal moments—the singular, one-on-one interactions when a student or visitor felt what he described as “a lift” when viewing one of these exceptional works of art.
Caroline Harris
Associate Director for Education