Paul Cezanne (1839 - 1906) painted almost 200 portraits, including twenty six of himself and twenty nine of his wife .

This book presents twenty - four 'highlights' from a major international exhibition that explores the portraiture of this remarkable artist, whom both Matisse and Picasso called 'the father of us all'. In bringing together a broad selection of Cezanne's portraits, the book reveals arguably the most personal , and therefore most human, aspect of his art, and one that has hitherto received surprisingly little attention.

They range from the artist 's earliest surviving self - portrait , dating from the 1860s, through portraits of his uncle Dominique, his wife Hortense, his son Paul and a range of friends and associates, to his final portrait of Vallier, the gardener at his house near Aix en Provence, made shortly before the artist's death in 1906.

The art historian Mary Tompkins Lewis , author of Cezanne : Art and Ideas (200 0 ) and Cezanne's Early Imagery ( 1989 ) , contributes an illuminating introductory essay on the artist and his portraiture for a general readership. Also included is an illustrated chronology of Cezanne's life and work .