Picasso Burial Site to be opened
Flash! The Picasso chateau, studio and burial site in Vauvenargues, just outside of Aix-en-Provence, will be opened to small groups of visitors in May. Applications for admission will be long with good reason; it’s the first chance that the public will have to visit the Chateau Vauvenargues.
The chateau is in the shadow of Monte Ste. Victoire a site that Paul Cézanne painted over 30 times.
Picasso bought the old Guinness Chateau in 1958 and used it as a studio for many years. His wife found it ‘drafty’ and hard to heat and so it was abandoned by Picasso and left closed to the public for all these years. Now his stepdaughter, Catherine Hutin, daughter of Picasso’s last wife, Jacqueline Roque has agreed to reopen the gates for six months.
The announcement coincides with the proposed Picasso- Cézanne exhibit, ‘Le soleil en face’, which is set for May 2009
at the Musee Granat in Aix. It will coincide with completion of the museum’s four-year renovation.
For Picasso, “it all started with Cézanne” and he wrote to his agent that he had “bought…Cézannes Mountain”. Picasso once said “I have found force in Cézanne. He was my one and only master…he gave me a new feeling about composition.”
In the structure of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles D’avignan you can see signs of Cezanne.
“His was pure cubism”, Picasso said.
In discussions with Gertrude Stein they agreed that “Cézanne was our mother who protects her children”.
The chateau today The studio was left untouched and it was Jacqueline who decided that the extremely private burial should be at the Chateau. Thus, nobody has seen the site, which is topped with his 1933 sculpture,”Femme au vase”.
Within the chateau the furniture remains. So too does a mandolin he used as a subject many times and a mural he painted over the bathtub.
It was here that he painted many portraits of Jacqueline with somber colors as well as a series that pays tribute to many Impressionists such as Manet.
But it was Cézanne who was the force behind Picasso’s work in Paris as well as Vauvenargues. The name Cézanne was magical to Picasso. There are signs of Cézanne in Picasso’s early works. Cézanne’s studio can also be seen in Aix. It is just on the northern edge of Aix, a place that is often referred to as Cézanne’s city. His route is marked on the sidewalks and streets of the city so people can follow his trail.
Picasso and Jacqueline left Vauvenargues in 1965. He died in 1973, shortly after poisoning himself with a bottle of bleach. Very few people attended the funeral. One of his grandsons, Pablito, was barred from the funeral. Jacqueline committed suicide a few years later. She couldn’t go on without the man she called ‘Cher Maitre’ and referred to as “God”.
I was always moved by the story of Picasso’s friend Pilares. Pilares was from the tiny village of Horta on the Ebro River and hired a car and driver to take him to the funeral. They had been friends for over 60 years. Pilares, in his nineties, was turned away at the gate.
I visited Vauvenargues and got as far as the gate and was greeted by barking dogs and a sign that said if anyone wanted information they should go to the Picasso Museum in Paris.
Now, those gates will be opened if only for six months. I plan to be among the thousands who I’m sure will do a pilgrimage to the site of Picasso’s final resting-place.
Cézanne While in Aix, a fascinating site for tourists, I suggest you visit the Museum and Cézanne’s studio on Chemin des Lauves. It’s worth a visit.
Cézanne, who was also a boyhood friend of Emile Zola, died in October 1906. Their split was partly caused by the difference in opinion they had during the Dreyfus Case.
When I return to see the grave I will recall, no doubt, his words, “Embolica’t amb la flassada de l’abracada que t’envia et teu amic de sempre,” (Wrap yourself in the cover of the embrace which your friend of always sends you.)
For information, contact:
Infos@aixenprovencetourism.com
They are located at the start of Cours Mirabeau at 2 place du General Charles de Gaulle.
