James Picard - Artist of the Month, April 2006: Georges Braque

***April 2006***

Georges Braque
May 13, 1882 - August 31, 1963

George Braque was born in Argenteuil, a small village on the Seine near Paris. Both his father and grandfather were skilled artists. In 1890, when Georges was eight years old, the family moved to Le Havre where Braque led quite a solitary childhood. He went to the local Ecole des Beaux-Arts but failed his exams in 1899, leaving his parents to apprentice their son to a local painter-decorator. In 1900 Braque moved to Paris where he continued painting and met and befriended artists such as Raoul Dufy, Henri Matisse and André Derain and became involved with the Fauvist art movement.

In 1907 he first saw the work of Cézanne and in the same year met Picasso who had just completed 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' (one of Picasso's priliminary cubist paintings), and although not immediately impressed, Braque began letting go of the emphasis of bright disharmonious Fauvist colour and began experimenting with a fragmented style with attention to volume and structure which would eventually become Cubism. The term 'Cubism' was actually applied by an art critic referring to a painting done by Braque which was exhibited in 1909 at the Salon d'Automne in Paris.

Returning to the Mediterranean, and to painting landscapes, Braque was rapidly developing his own distinctive vision, imposing his own take on the landscape rather than replicating exactly what he saw. For the next few years Braque worked closely with Picasso particularly between 1910 and 1912, experimenting with Cubism and this new technique in which to represent form and space. Along with landscapes, musical instruments, portraiture and still-lifes were a common theme used by both Braque and Picasso. By 1912, realizing that they were succumbing to the notion of art for art's sake, the pair began to abandon painting Cubism. Braque and Picasso then began experimenting with colour and collage and achieved some impressive results.

In 1914, with the onset of the First World War, Braque enlisted in the French army and fought on the front until he suffered a head wound in battle and returned home. By 1917 Braque was back in the studio working although his work began to change as he adopted a more graceful, freer style, using curves and muted colours. His collaboration with Picasso over, Braque began a close friendship with Cubist painter Juan Gris.

His fame grew in 1922 after an exhibition of his work at the Salon d'Antomne was celebrated by both patrons and critics and by the 1930s his reputation was international and although he had returned to a more realistic interpretation of nature, certain aspects of Cubism always remained present in his work.

His first important retrospective took place in 1933 at the Kunsthalle Basel and he won First Prize at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh in 1937.

During World War II Braque remained in Paris. His paintings at that time, primarily still lives and interiors, became more somber. In addition to paintings, Braque also made lithographs, engravings, and sculpture. In 1953 he designed stained-glass windows for the church of Varengeville. During the last few years of his life Braque's ill health prevented him from undertaking further large-scale commissions, but he continued to paint and make lithographs until the end of his life. He died in Paris on August 31, 1963 and was given a state funeral.

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