Modigliani, Van Gogh, Degas, Soutine, Gauguin, Toulouse-Lautrec, and above all 24 works by Paul Cezanne… Since 1974, this private collection among the most prestigious of European art has been housed in the art museum of the no less prestigious Princeton University , in the USA.
We owe it to Henry Pearlman (1895-1974), “self-made man” American who made his fortune in the refrigeration industry for the Navy, and who became passionate about impressionist and post-impressionist works. In 1945, a first love at first sight for Soutine set the course. In 1950, he made the The acquisition of a remarkable Van Gogh, The Stagecoach of Tarascon, which brings his collection into the great class.
Above all, he met in Aix the Cezanne painter Léo Marchutz and the eminent specialist John Rewald. Henry Pearlman catches the virus. The Aix master became his favorite painter. His obsession: until his death in 1974, he managed to patiently collect 33 works, including six oils on canvas and sixteen watercolors and drawings, particularly fragile, “in a very good state of conservation, with an astonishing freshness of colors“, according to Bruno Ély, chief curator of the Granet Museum.
“A great day for the city”
On Wednesday, the City of Aix officially received the Henry and Rose Pearlman collection on deposit, after four years of proceedings, confirmed by the signing at the town hall of an agreement between Daniel Edelman, grandson of the collector and president of the Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation, and the mayor Sophie Joissains.It’s a great day for the city“, underlined the councilor, welcoming an “extraordinary”, “unique in the world” collection, which will be exhibited for an exceptional period of three years, from the end of June 2025, on the occasion of the highly anticipated “Cezanne year “, in the chapel of the White Pénitents of the Granet museum, the annex dedicated to the 20th century.
“My grandparents woke up for 40 years in front of the painting of the ‘Montagne Sainte-Victoire vu des Lauves’, Daniel Edelman, who was visiting Aix “for the tenth or twelfth” time, said with emotion. My grandfather had a strong attraction to the late works of great painters, which were often more complex.“
