In Aix-en-Provence, a major celebration of Paul Cézanne in 2025

From his family bastide to the Sainte-Victoire mountain, the painter Paul Cezanne (1839–1906) spent his life sketching sunny landscapes from around Aix-en-Provencehis hometown where he also lived his last days. Nearly 120 years after her death, the latter has just announced this Monday, November 25 during a press conference the program of « Cezanne 2025 » : a “major event” which will pay homage to the famous post-impressionist from June 28 to October 12, 2025.

At the Granet museum, a large exhibition titled “Cezanne at Jas de Bouffan” will look back on the 40 years spent by the artist in this beautiful family bastide surrounded by fifteen hectares of vineyards and orchards, acquired by his father in 1859 – an important place in the life of the artist, who lived there until 1899 , and painted his best-known masterpieces there.

More than 100 works including little-known paintings

This exhibition completes the progressive restoration of the famous bastide, part of which the public will be able to discover next summer.

Loaned by major museums around the world, more than 100 works representing this Provençal property and its inhabitants will be gathered there: the famous Card players (1890–1895) from the Musée d’Orsay, for which peasants employed on the estate were posed, but also little-known early paintingsas well as an exceptional painting representing the house and the adjoining farm, from the National Gallery in Prague.

This exhibition complements progressive restorationbetween 2025 and 2026, and for an amount of 4.7 million euros, of the famous bastide, bought by the city in 2018, and of which the public will be able discover part of it next summer. In addition to the restoration of the room, the park (of which almost 5 hectares remain almost intact, with its avenues of chestnut trees and its ponds painted by the artist) and the Grand Salon (where fragments of the very first fresco painted on the places by Cezanne were discovered in 2023), the old-style cuisine will be restored.

Also renovated, the adjacent farm will accommodate the Cezannian Center for Research and Documentation (CCRD). The large hangar will be transformed into an auditorium, and the orangery into a catering area, while the ticket office and the shop will be installed after 2025 in a new reception building. Everything will be completed by the inauguration of temporary exhibition rooms and a educational path.

Exhibitions, visits and immersive experiences throughout Aix

Another novelty, the famous Lauves workshop – a place of touching simplicity where the artist worked from 1902 to his death in 1906 (and where the visitor can discover his personal objects arranged as at the time) – was also restored after two years of work. Acquired by the city in 2016, land adjoining the workshop made it easier to access, while from the summer of 2025 a unique immersive experience.

Two new visitor routes will also be inaugurated: one, from February 2025, aimed at young audiences at La Manufacture; the other in the open air, leading to Bibémus quarrieswhose chaotic rocks with massive shapes and angular contours were a decisive source of inspiration for this precursor of cubism. A whole program will also be available to discover in various places in Aix, including two exhibitions of archives and photographs at the Vieil Aix museum and the Vendôme pavilion. Roll on summer!