Albert Oehlen – Cezanne

Albert Oehlen’s Cezanne (2021) is a signed limited edition print that engages with the long tradition of the bather motif in French art, most famously developed by Paul Cézanne in works such as Three Bathers (1879–82). Cézanne’s composition, with nude figures framed by trees that both conceal and reveal the body, established a foundational tension between figure and landscape that would shape modernism. Oehlen draws on this legacy while critically reworking its formal and conceptual language.

Rendered in gestural black and gray strokes, Oehlen’s solitary female figure appears within an abstracted landscape where trees and ground dissolve into loose marks and painterly suggestion. Rather than re-creating Cézanne’s composition, the artwork distills its central conflict between structure and dissolution, legibility and abstraction. The resulting image is spectral and dreamlike, with the figure hovering between presence and disappearance.

This limited edition print aligns with Oehlen’s broader engagement with the bather motif, including works shown in his 2025 exhibition Endless Summer at Gagosian in Paris. Like Cézanne before him, Oehlen uses the motif as a site of experimentation, layering homage with critical distance and extending the language of modern painting into a contemporary context through printmaking.

Albert Oehlen is a leading figure in contemporary painting, widely recognized for his radical and experimental approach to abstraction and image-making. Since the 1980s, Oehlen has consistently challenged traditional ideas of composition, authorship, and aesthetic refinement, embracing deliberate imperfection through bold brushwork, smears, and gestural marks. His artworks operate in a productive tension between abstraction and figuration, often appearing chaotic while being rigorously constructed.

A defining aspect of Oehlen’s practice is his playful yet systematic combination of divergent techniques, including collage, digital imagery, and computer-generated elements alongside traditional painting and printmaking. This hybrid approach extends to his prints and limited edition works, where analog and digital processes intersect to question the boundaries of painting, reproduction, and visual hierarchy. Oehlen’s artworks are held in major international museum collections, and his work has been exhibited widely at institutions such as the Serpentine Gallery, Palazzo Grassi, the Guggenheim Bilbao, and Kunsthalle Zürich, underscoring his lasting influence on contemporary art and works on paper.