This exhibition celebrates an extraordinary collection of drawings and prints by Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) that has been gifted and placed on long-term loan to the Whitworth by gallerist, collector, author and founder of Ridinghouse Karsten Schubert. This important act of generosity means that the Whitworth now holds the best collection of Cézanne works on paper in the United Kingdom, including a version of every print produced by the artist.
These works will significantly expand the research potential of the Whitworth’s important collection of late nineteenth-century French and Dutch drawings by artists including Van Gogh, Seurat, Gauguin and Pissarro – whose portrait of Cézanne is included in this publication. The exhibition also draws together other artistic copies: Raimondi’s copy of Raphael’s Judgement of Paris and, bringing us to the present day, Michael Landy’s Cézanne Bathers.
With a lead essay by renowned Impressionist scholar Richard Thomson on the significance of the bequest to the Whitworth’s collection of nineteenth-century drawings, a biographical essay on Schubert by Richard Shone, an interview of Karsten Schubert by Yuval Etgar on the bequest, and an essay by Christopher Lloyd on how these works relate to Cézanne's output as a draughtsman. The publication also includes a detailed catalogue section on all works in the exhibitions with contributions by Elizabeth Cowling, Rosalind McKever, Colin Wiggins and Edward Wouk.