Better Late than Never: “Cézanne in Provence” on PBS

Tonight, viewers of PBS stations can finally get to see the documentary “Cézanne in Provence,” inspired by the eponymous exhibition at the National Gallery, Washington. But if the television show whets your appetite to see the museum show, you’re probably out of luck: It closed in Washington on May 7. If money’s no object, though, you can still catch it at the Musée Granet in Aix-en-Provence, where it closes Sept. 17.
Washingtonians did get to see the TV treatment in a more timely fashion, on the PBS station that produced it, WETA. Other PBS stations around the country (including WNET in New York) are just premiering it tonight. (Check local listings.)
Filmed on location in Washington and Provence, this high-definition documentary, exploring “the indelible link between French painter Cézanne and his beloved home,” is narrated by French actress Jacqueline Bisset.
Oh yes, the exhibition’s co-curator, Philip Conisbee, also gets a chance to speak, although WETA’s capsule description fails to mention this. Why give credit to a scholar, when you can play the celebrity card? The PBS description does mention that insights are provided by “the National Gallery’s senior curator for European paintings and curator of French paintings,” but fails to reveal his name. Maybe they’re just taking their cue from the National Gallery’s own information sheet, which also fails to credit Conisbee.
This seems a ripe target for CultureGrrl‘s Curators of the World Unite! campaign, to which the Guggenheim has already responded favorably. More than sponsors, museum directors or celebrity narrators, the people who actually create an exhibition merit some acknowledgment.