Cezanne: Truth in Art

In anticipation of the upcoming exhibition Cezanne (opening May 15, 2022 at the Art Institute of Chicago), Dr. Gloria Groom explores why Cezanne’s works resist easy art historical explanation and optical consumption. Although he focused largely on conventional subjects —pastoral landscapes, classical nudes, portraits, and still lifes– the resulting paintings and watercolors fit neither into the Impressionist camp nor that of contemporaries who followed more traditional paths. Indeed, Cezanne’s art is the bridge between the vanguard of his own time and artists of the next generations, who were liberated by his radical new approach to making art.

Gloria Groom is chair of Painting and Sculpture of Europe and David and Mary Winton Green Curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. Since joining the museum in 1985, she been involved in numerous major monographic exhibitions and their accompanying catalogues, including Monet and Chicago (2020–21), Manet and Modern Beauty (2019), Gauguin: Artist as Alchemist (2017), Van Gogh’s Bedrooms (2016), Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity (2012–13), and Seurat and the Making of “La Grande Jatte” (2004). Along with Caitlin Haskell, she is co-curator of the upcoming full-career retrospective Cezanne, opening in May 2022.

Gloria continues to oversee monographic online scholarly catalogues on the museum’s Impressionist collection involving an international team of scholars, conservators, and scientists. To date she has written for and edited volumes on Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Caillebotte, Gauguin, and Manet—with Cezanne forthcoming. Her contributions to French art and culture have been recognized by the French Republic, which named her Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2012. In 2016 she was further recognized by the French, receiving a medal as Chevalier (Knight) in the Legion of Honor.

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