Collaboration with Skira for the Cézanne/Renoir exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milan

19.03.2024-30.06.2024 Milan, Palazzo Reale

In 2024, the year in which the 150th anniversary of the birth of the Impressionist movement is celebrated, one of the most important exhibitions of the spring opens at Palazzo Reale in Milan, from 19 March to 30 June which compares the personalities and works of two painters, Paul Cézanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir , who contributed decisively to the fortunes of Impressionism and who influenced future generations of artists.

Promoted by Comune – Cultura with the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and the Ambassade de France en Italie, the exhibition is produced by Palazzo Reale, Skira Arte and Museum Studio , in collaboration with Musée de l'Orangerie and Musée d'Orsay , as part of the Milan Cortina 2026 Cultural Olympics, and curated by Cécile Girardeau, curator at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris, and Stefano Zuffi, art historian, with the collaboration of Alice Marsal, head of archives and documentation at the Musée de l'Orangerie. The project is carried out thanks to Enel, as main partner, and thanks to Fineco, premium partner.

The exhibition presents fifty-two masterpieces , capable of offering an exhaustive cross-section of the work of the two artists, from the first canvases of the 1870s to the more mature works of the early twentieth century , brought together by the art dealer Paul Guillaume (1891-1934), who considered Cézanne and Renoir to be the leaders of a painting that was both classical and modern, and, after his death, by his wife Domenica (1898-1977). The canvases then joined the prestigious collections of the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris and the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, flanked in the exhibition by two canvases by Pablo Picasso.

Starting from their most appreciated and well-known paintings, the exhibition gives an account of the different trajectories that the two authors followed throughout their respective careers: Cézanne focused attention on the more rigorous and geometric compositional structure and on the strength of the brushstroke, Renoir concentrated on harmony , on delicate atmospheres, on the rendering of shapes through colour. The exhibition itinerary highlights the meeting points of these two artistic itineraries, developed in parallel with the birth of a sincere friendship, which began as early as 1860, which resulted in mutual admiration, leading the two masters to ask themselves common questions and to cultivate an interest shared for some genres, such as still life, landscape, portrait and nude.

The collaboration between Skira Arte and the Garance & Marion Gallery was born on the occasion of the Cézanne / Renoir exhibition. Masterpieces from the Musée de l'Orangerie and the Musée D'Orsay.

Seven young contemporary artists from the gallery reinterpret the masterpieces of two of the most influential painters of the impressionist movement: Paul Cézanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir.

The artists who participated: