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The name Cézanne may well have been Italian in origin,
but Paul Cézanne was born to French parents in Aix-en-
Provence, in Provence in the South of France, on January
19, 1839. His parents, Louis-Auguste Cézanne (1798-1886)
and Anne Aubert (1814-1897), had their newborn son
baptized just over a month after his birth, in the local parish
church. Cézanne’s father was a former milliner, turned
banker, who co-founded a prosperous firm that afforded
Cézanne
A Biography
his son a lifetime of financial security – a situation often not
available to artists in the 19
th
and 20
th
centuries, although
he did have several years of financial hardship. While
Cézanne’s father would at first reject his son’s ambitions, his
mother, whom he resembled, gave him encouragement
and support. She was a vivacious woman who sent
Paul and his two younger sisters to school in the family’s
hometown of Cesana (now West Piedmont).
(Mary Evans/Epic/Tallandier)
above:
Portrait of the French painter Paul Cézanne in 1904 in Aix en Provence.
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cézanne