Paul Czanne202169MoMA

The Association of American PublishersPROSEPROSE Awards2022

Czanne at his most modern: a major career-spanning appraisal of his extraordinarily experimental drawings.

Although he is most often celebrated as a painter, Paul Czannes extraordinary vision was fueled by his experiments on paper. In pencil and watercolor, on individual sheets and across the pages of sketchbooks, the artist described form through multiple probing lines; realized compositions through repetitions and transformations; and conjured kaleidoscopic color through layering of watercolor. It is in these material realities of drawing where we see Czanne at his most modern: embracing the unfinished, making process visible and actively inviting the viewer to participate in the act of perception.

Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, this is the most significant effort to date to unite drawings from across Czannes entire career, tracing the development of his practice on paper, exploring working methods that transcend subject, and devoting both curatorial and conservation-based research to these remarkable works.