Paul Cézanne, who exhibited little in his lifetime and pursued his interests increasingly in artistic isolation, is regarded today as one of the great forerunners of modern art. Cézanne was a contemporary of the impressionists, but he went beyond their interests in the individual brushstroke and the fall of light onto objects, to create, in his words, `something more solid and durable, like the art of the museums.'

Cézanne was born at Aix-en-Provence in the south of France. He attended school there and formed a close childhood friendship with the novelist Emile Zola which lasted throughout his lifetime. He was always interested in art and attended drawing classes throughout his late teenage years and even while studying law, which he did from 1859 to 1861. Against steadfast resistance of his father, he made up his mind that he wanted to paint and in 1861 joined his friend Zola in Paris. His father eventually gave in and reluctantly sent Cezanne an allowance which enabled him to paint full-time and, later, a large inheritance on which he could live without difficulty. In Paris he met Camille Pissaro and came to know others of the impressionist group, with whom he would exhibit in 1874 and 1877. Cézanne, however, remained an outsider to their circle; from 1864 to 1869 he submitted his work to the official SALON and saw it consistently rejected.

This rejection helped fuel Cézanne’s temperment and feelings of isolation and altered his approach to painting. In the late 1870’s Cézanne entered the phase known as `constructive,' characterized by hatched brushstrokes and the breaking down of objects into geometrical shapes which build up a sense of mass.

Towards the end of his life he lived a solitary existence in Aix and stopped his usual routine of traveling between the south and Paris. He concentrated on a few basic subjects: still lifes of studio objects built around recurring elements as apples, statuary, and tablecloths; studies of bathers and successive views of the Mont Sainte-Victoire, a nearby landmark, painted from his studio. By the time of his death in 1906, Cézanne's art had begun to be exhibited and seen across Europe, and it became a fundamental influence on the Fauves, Cubists, and virtually all art of the early 20th century.

Pablo Picasso was quoted as saying, "My one and only master . . . Cezanne was like the father of us all". Which helped give Cezanne the title as the "father of modern art".