Cézanne and American Modernism

The first in-depth look at Cézanne’s powerful influence in shaping early 20th-century American art

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) is one of the great geniuses in the history of art, and his work has influenced a multitude of artists throughout Europe. Across the Atlantic, Cézanne’s paintings had a similarly catalytic effect on artists emerging in the United States during the early 20th century. Cézanne and American Modernism is the first book devoted specifically to his impact on American art and its eager reception there. It shows how American painters and photographers cemented Cézanne’s legacy by spreading their respect and admiration for his vision with their own art, writings, and exhibitions.

Examining Cézanne’s influence on more than a generation of American artists, this handsomely illustrated book features paintings and photography by Paul Strand, Marsden Hartley, Man Ray, Alfred Stieglitz, Charles Demuth, Arshile Gorky, Charles Sheeler, Stanton Macdonald-Wright, Maurice Prendergast, Morgan Russell, Max Weber, and many others. Cézanne’s far-reaching transformative impact on each artist’s aesthetic vision is explored, while extensive essays shed new light on a wide range of subjects from American collectors of his work and his shaping of modernism in the American West to the lasting resonance of his art on Abstract Expressionism in the 1950s.