This innovator who would influence a new way of art during the XXth century was born in Aix-en-Provence in early 1839. He studied at school and then enrolled at the Borbon School in 1852, where he met and became a close friend of Emile Zola, with whom he shared cultural interests. In 1856 he registered at the School of drawing of Joseph Gilbert. When Zola returned to Paris, Cezanne followed him.
It is then that Cezanne's vocation started to flourish. In 1862 and 1863 he exhibited his paintings at the " Hall of the Rejected " and he alternated his sojourns in the south and north of France. In 1869 he met Hortense Fiquet, with whom he had a son, and married her in 1886. He followed Camille Pissarro, whom he greatly admired, to Pontoise and settled at Auvers-sur-Oise where he stayed until 1874. During this last year he exhibited some paintings together with other Impressionists. He again participated with this group in the Third Exhibition that they organized. In 1882, a portrait that he painted was accepted to be exhibited at an official exhibition.
