BRAQUE Georges

Georges Braque

1882-1963

Lithograph executed by Georges and Armand Israel Editions after a work by Braque. Signed in the plate.

Paper dimensions: 55x75cm.

Numbered edition of 199 copies.

Publisher's dry stamp.

Georges BRAQUE
 

First engaged in the wake of wild beasts, influenced by Henri Matisse, André Derain and Othon Friesz, in the summer of 1906 he ended up in the landscapes of l'Estaque with cube-shaped houses that Matisse described as "cubists". He is, with his friend Pablo Picasso, who lives in the same grouping of artists' studios as he in Montmartre "Le bateau Lavoir", the inventor of this new pictorial movement.

As a true "thinker" of cubism, he developed the laws of perspective and color. He also invented paper sculptures in 1912, all destroyed, which only a photograph remains.

Mobilized for the Great War where he was seriously injured, the painter abandoned geometric shapes for still lifes. In these paintings, the objects were in recomposed plans. The Second World War inspired him his most serious works. Then, come the peace and the end of his illness. He creates very poetic works such as the series of Birds, two copies of which adorn the ceiling of the Henri-II room of the Louvre museum, since 1953.

Two years before his death, in 1961, a retrospective of his works entitled L'Atelier de Braque took place at the Louvre museum, Braque thus became the first painter to be exhibited in this place during his lifetime.

A national funeral was held in his honor.