Posts Tagged ‘Impressionism’

Dawn of Impressionism: Paris 1874 (2025)

Dir/Wri: Ali Ray | UK Doc

The Impressionists are the most popular artists in the world today. On the whole their paintings are relatable, unchallenging and easy on the eye with their agreeable images. Yet when Impressionism first became a style it was ridiculed and rejected.

This new arthouse documentary not only recounts the riveting story of passion and rebellion which gave birth of the world’s favourite art movement, it is told from the perspective of the painters themselves, through their shared letters and diaries, offering unparalleled and intimate access to their thought processes and methods.

In this way we are able to better understand these avant-garde creatives, how their minds worked and how they broke down the barriers in the pivotal years that led up to the opening of the doors of Nadar’s Studio with their own radical exhibition back in Paris on April 15, 1874. And why they eventually became the all time favourites amongst aficionados and collectors alike.

Ali Ray, best known for her art films Klimt and the Kiss  My National Gallery, and Frida Kahlo takes her camera and a selection of well known critics and curators to Paris’ Musée d’Orsay and the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC to look at this fascinating trans-Atlantic exhibition and bring it to a global audience in cinemas and eventually at home. @MeredithTaylor

IN UK CINEMAS from 18 March 2025

Cezanne: Portraits of a Life (2017)

Dir: Phil Grabsky | David Bickerstaff | Doc | 85′

Phil Grabsky directs in this documentary exploring the life, art and legacy of the “father of modern art”, Paul Cézanne. 

Based on his extensive correspondence with painters including Émile Zola and Camille Pissarro, plus interviews with curators, experts and the artist’s great-grandson Philippe Cézanne

The film uses the exhibition Cézanne Portraits, on display at the National Portrait Gallery in London, as a launching off point to uncover the story of the man credited with bridging the gap between Impressionism and Cubism and heralding in a new generation of artistic tradition. This “once in a lifetime” exhibition was first mounted in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and was also shown in the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, featuring fifty of Cézanne’s portraits from collections around the world.

Cézanne – Portraits of Life also travels to Paris, where Cézanne mixed in the emerging circle of Impressionists, and to his childhood and family home in Aix-en-Provence, giving viewers an unprecedented insight into one of history’s most significant yet, until now, lesser-known artists.

Impossible to appreciate 20th century art without understanding the significance and genius of Paul Cézanne. The immersive documentary includes interviews with curators and experts from the National Portrait Gallery London, MoMA New York, National Gallery of Art Washington, and Musée d’Orsay Paris, and correspondence from the artist himself, and takes audiences beyond the exhibition to the places Cézanne lived and worked and sheds light on an artist who is perhaps the least known of all the Impressionists. MT

Back by popular demand | IN CINEMAS FROM 29 NOVEMBER 2022

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