Timeline

Heritage classified

Key figures

Origin and history

The Cézanne pavilion, located on the Lauves hill in Aix-en-Provence, was acquired in 1901 by 62-year-old Paul Cézanne. This 0.7 hectare estate, with a garden, pine trees, olive trees and fig trees, offered stunning views of the Sainte-Victoire mountain, an inspiration for 44 oils and 43 watercolours. Cézanne had a bastide built there with a workshop illuminated by a large window, where he worked daily from 1901 to his death in 1906, surrounded by loneliness and light.

After Cézanne's death, the workshop remained closed until 1921, when his son sold it to the writer Marcel Provence, who lived there until 1951. In 1952, American biographers James Lord and John Rewald created a committee to save the site from demolition. Purchased with donations, it was offered at the University of Aix-Marseille before being transformed into a municipal museum in 1969. Today, the site reconstructs the atmosphere of the workshop, exposing personal objects, furniture, and works of the painter.

Nearby, the Garden of Painters commemorates the place where Cézanne painted 28 times the Sainte-Victoire between 1902 and 1906. Nine of his paintings are reproduced on ceramic plates. Ranked Historic Monument in 1974 and labeled Maisons des Illustres in 2012, the pavilion embodies the master's artistic heritage, alongside other Aix-based sites such as the Jas de Bouffan or the Cabanon de Bibémus.

The bastide also illustrates Cézanne's ties to his native region, which he surveyed from his teens with his friend Émile Zola. His son, then figures like Émile Bernard (who lived there in 1904), also marked the history of the place. In 1984, the song Cézanne painted by France Gall, written by Michel Berger, paid tribute to this emblematic workshop, anchored in the Provencal landscape.

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