BRAQUE, Georges (Argenteuil-sur-Seine, 1882 – Paris, 1963)
Georges Braque trained as a painter and decorator with his father. In 1902, he attended the Académie Humbert in Paris. In 1903 he became a friend of Othon Friesz and Raoul Dufy at the École des Beaux-Arts. During those years he often visited the Musée du Luxembourg and the galleries Durand Ruel and Vollard, where he familiarised himself with the Impressionist paintings. In 1905, Braque was strongly impressed by the works of Henri Matisse and André Derain, presented at the Salon d’Automne. His first Fauve paintings, made in the company of Friesz in Antwerp, date from 1906. That same year, in October, he went to L’Estaque, following in Cézanne’s footsteps. Braque also returned to L’Estaque in September 1907, and for the first time produced non-fauvist works. At the end of the year he attended Cézanne’s retrospective exhibition at the Salon d’Automne and visited Picasso’s atelier, where he saw Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
In 1908, Braque returned to L’Estaque where he produced his first Cubist works. Rejected
by the Salon d’Automne, they were exhibited by Kahnweiler in his gallery, in the famous exhibition that gave its name to the movement. In 1909, the relationship between Picasso and Braque became closer, in an artistic dialogue that would last until 1913. Braque abandoned his landscapes and concentrated his research on still lifes and compositions with figures, in which he dissected the shapes and analysed the constructive component. In 1911, he worked with Picasso in Céret, producing some of the most significant Cubist works. In the years that followed, Braque renovated the Cubist language by introducing numbers and stencilled letters, imitations of marble and wood, as well as pieces of coloured paper and newspaper cuttings, opening new ways to the plastic arts of the 20th century.
Braque was called up during the First World War, and was seriously wounded in 1915, on the Artois front. During his convalescence, he wrote abundant aphorisms, published in 1917 in the magazine Nord-Sud under the title “Pensées
et réflexions sur la peinture”. Upon his return
to painting, he recaptured the Cubist language, free of restrictions and with a richer use of colour, ornamentation and texture. He also produced some stage designs for the Russian ballets of Diaghilev, and from the 1930s on he dedicated part of his efforts to sculpture and engraving.
In 1933, the first important retrospective exhibition of his works was held at the Kunstmuseum in Basle. He received numerous awards during his lifetime, such as the Carnegie Institute of Pittsburgh’s International Prize (1937) and the Venice Biennale Prize (1948). Braque died in Paris on 31 August 1963.
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