John REWALD-US

AUDIO 

John REWALD

Born in Berlin in 1912 into a Jewish family under the name of Gustav Rewald, he died in New York in 1994. His youth takes place in Germany where he begins graduate studies in art history.

While he has been in Paris since 1932 as part of his studies, Hitler’s accession to power in 1933 forced his family to leave Germany for London. He chose to stay in Paris to continue his studies.

During his stay in France in the 1930s, he met Leo Marchutz himself a painter and great admirer of Cézanne’s work. Set up at Château Noir in Tholonet, Leo Marchutz welcomed him for frequent and long stays from 1933.  When he discovered the Tholonet, the Sainte Victoire and the Cézanne landscapes, John Rewald was immediately seduced by the beauty of the site and Leo Marchutz’s enthusiasm for Cézanne’s work. Walking in the company of Leo Marchutz, he then tries to photograph all the Cézanne motifs.  He forms with Leo Marchutz and Fritz Novotny, Austrian art historian, a trio of enthusiasts and begins with them research on Cézanne. Following the lead of an Italian art historian, Lionello Venturi , who had begun in 1936 to draw up a catalogue raisonné of Cézanne’s work, John Rewald embarked on a work that would last for many years and which he could not complete before his death.  His assistant Walter Feilchenfeldt and Jayne Warman will continue to write the catalogue, which will not be published until 1996. 

John Rewald presented a doctoral thesis on the relationship between Cézanne and Zola at the Sorbonne in 1936.

In 1939, because of his German nationality, he was considered an enemy and interned for a few months in a camp. In 1941 he managed to leave France for the United States where he became an American citizen.

John Rewald then began a career as an art historian, became a university professor, organized many exhibitions and advised major American collectors for the purchase of works by French impressionist and postimpressionists whom he knows very well since his stay in France.

In 1946 he published a book, Histoire de l'impressionnisme, which was very well received by critics.  With each new edition, he enriches his work which refers to this subject.  Ten years later, in 1956, he published a History of Post-Impressionism. 

Although he is in the United States, John Rewald does not forget about Cézanne, of whom he has become a great specialist over time. He wrote many books on Cézanne.

John Rewald also organizes many exhibitions around the work of Cézanne. In 1956, he actively participated with Leo Marchutz to the organization of the first major exhibition in Aix en Provence, at the Pavillon Vendôme, for the fiftieth anniversary of Cézanne’s death. (Given the lack of recognition of Cézanne in Aix en Provence, the exhibition for the centenary of the birth of the painter had been organized in 1939 in Lyon!) He organizes other exhibitions such as the very large retrospective at MoMA in New York in 1979.

Together with James Lord, another art historian, John Rewald created the “Cezanne Memorial Committee” to collect donations and redeem in 1954 the Atelier des Lauves from the heirs of Marcel Provence, a lover of Provencal culture and ardent “defender” of Cézanne. He offers it the same year at the University of Aix en Provence A plaque testifies to this: «CEZANNE’S WORKSHOP OFFERED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF AIX EN PROVENCE BY AMERICAN ADMIRERS». The Atelier des Lauves was sold to the city in 1969. Open to the public since 1954, it is classified to be permanently protected. It is being extensively restored for the 2025 exhibition.

In 1984, John Rewald received the gold medal of honorary citizen of the city of Aix en Provence. Deceased in 1994, his ashes are deposited, according to his last wishes, at the cemetery of Saint Pierre in Aix en Provence near the tomb of Cézanne. The City gave its name to a place on the former site of the Forbin Barracks, he who did so much throughout his life for the knowledge of Cézanne.