Sensational Cezanne

The National Gallery today unveiled its stunning Cezanne exhibition that marks the centenary of the master's death.

Forty-five oil paintings, watercolours, drawings and prints will trace the development of Cezanne's art from the 1860s.

The show, which is free to enter, includes portraits, still lifes and landscapes. They all come from collections in Britain and include world-renowned paintings such as The Bathers, The Abduction and The Card Players.

Those being displayed in public for the first time include a smaller prototype, worked on between 1890 and 1895, of Cezanne's famous painting The Bathers (Les Grand Baigneuses).

The major work, completed sometime during the following 10 years, hangs in the National.

The Railway Cutting (1867-70), a drawing in graphite on paper of a stunning view of Sainte-Victoire mountain in Provence, has also never been shown in public.

Paul Cezanne, who was born in Aix-en-Provence in 1839 and died in the same town in 1906 aged 67, is hailed by many as the father of modern painting but during his lifetime his work was largely ignored.

Reclusive and shy, he remained an outsider in the art world.

After the First World War, the National Gallery turned down the opportunity to buy his work Mountains In Provence (Near L'Estaque), saying it did not have enough space.

In 1964, its purchase of Les Grandes Baigneuses for £500,000 caused such a furore the painting had to be displayed behind perspex.

Anne Robbins, curator of the National Gallery show, said: "Cezanne hardly ever went abroad. His work was hardly known here in his lifetime and only a handful of pictures by him were shown in Britain.

"But the UK has one of the greatest collections of Cezanne in the world. This will be a powerful and stunning retrospective."