Bathers

Artist Paul Cezanne (French, 1839 - 1906)

Date1896-1897

MediumColor lithograph

DimensionsImage: 16 1/2 × 20 3/8 inches (41.91 × 51.75 cm)
Sheet: 18 3/4 × 24 1/4 inches (47.63 × 61.6 cm)

Credit LineBequest of Frances M. Logan

Object number47-121

Signedfigure

On View

Not on view

Collections

Prints

Terms

Exhibition History

The Organizers of the Armory Show, University of Kansas Museum of Art, Lawrence, KS, March 1-April 15, 1964.

Texarkana Fine Arts Gallery, Texarkana, TX, May 1964, no cat.

Fifty Years of Gifts to the Print Department, Part 1, 1933-1958: 50th Anniversary Exhibition, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 23-November 20, 1983, no. 19.

The Naked and the Nude: Representations of the Body, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, October 24, 2006-April 29, 2007; August 14, 2013-February 23, 2014, no cat., as Bathers.

Gallery Label

Over the course of his career, Cézanne produced a large number of images of men bathing, inspired perhaps by idyllic memories of his youth in Provence spent swimming and sunbathing. This is one of only three lithographs by Cézanne and his masterpiece in this medium. Here he has re-imagined the example of antique classical models and created nudes more bulky and animated. Seeking to fuse figure with landscape, he represents all four bathers against the looming mountain of Mont Saint-Victoire. The lithographic tints—particularly yellow, green and orange—resemble the effects of watercolor. This print is based on one of Cézanne’s paintings, Bathers at Rest (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania).

Provenance

Frances M. Logan (1855-1946), Kansas City, MO, by 1946;

Bequeathed by Frances M. Logan to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1947.

Published References

Lionello Venturi, Cézanne, son art, son œuvre, vol. 1 (Paris: Paul Rosenberg, 1936), no. 1157.

The Organizers of the Armory Show, exh. cat. (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Museum of Art, 1964).

Jean Cherpin, L'oeuvre gravé de Cézanne (Marseille, France: Arts et Livres de Provence, 1972), no. 7 II/III.

Una E. Johnson, Ambroise Vollard, Editeur: Prints, Books, Bronzes, exh. cat. (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1977), 130, as Les Baigneurs.

[George L. McKenna], The Fifty Years of Gifts to the Print Department, Part 1, 1933-1958: 50th Anniversary Exhibition, exh. cat. (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1983), no. 19.

George L. McKenna, Prints, 1460-1995 (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1996), 295, (repro.), as Bathers (large plate).

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