Grande baigneuse picasso biography

Around 200 of Cezanne’s works depict male and female nude bathers, either singly or in groups, in a landscape. The earliest dates from the 1870s. This large painting is one of three pictures of female bathers that Cezanne worked on during the final decade of his life. The largest of all his paintings, they represent the culmination of his lifelong investigation of this subject and the climax of his entire career. They were hugely influential on early twentieth-century modern art, particularly Cubism, and had a lasting impact on Picasso and Matisse.

The precise dating of the pictures is difficult. It’s possible that Cezanne worked simultaneously on all three canvases, beginning in the mid-1890s and continuing until his death in 1906, as each shows evidence of reworking. The first of the three, possibly begun in 1895 and of a similar size to the National Gallery’s picture, is now in the Barnes Founda