By Paul Dunwell, writing for EasyFrame
© Copyright EasyFrame 2020
What this article is about
Born in Argenteuil, just north-west of Paris, Georges Braque was an influential, avant-garde and arguably revolutionary 20th-century painter, printmaker, collage-maker, draughtsman, stage designer, plaster engraver and sculptor.
He began as an impressionist but is best remembered for his involvement in fauvism and cubism. He was a contemporary of Henri Matisse, leader of the fauves (the 'wild beasts'), and of Pablo Picasso, leader of the cubists. Both eclipsed him, though his cubist work is so good that it has often been mistaken for the Spaniard's.
Braque is often overlooked because, next to self-promoters like Picasso, he was perhaps too private for his own good. He deserves reverence on his own merits. His work is seen as reflecting his character: calming, reflective and sedate. But he was no passive follower of fashion. He is credited with inventing 'papier collé' (pasted paper), the method of making collages. He designed two sets for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, the Paris-based Russian ballet. He designed church windows. And he made some great etchings and aquatints in collaboration with Aldo Crommelynck.
Youth and early training
Braque was raised mostly in Le Havre, on France's northern coast, about 120 miles from his birthplace. There he became by day a third-generation house painter, following his father and grandfather. By night, in his mid-to-late teens, he studied at the local École des Beaux-Arts.
He was apprenticed to a master decorator and qualified at 20. He then spent a couple of years training as an artist at the Académie Humbert, near the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre. There he met avant-garde friends who would become influential, including the painter and poet Francis Picabia and the painter and printmaker Marie Laurencin.
The key exhibitions
- 1907. At the Salon des Indépendants he showed work in the fauvist style, which had begun in 1905. The movement proved short-lived.
- 1908. His first solo exhibition was at the gallery of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, a prominent German-born dealer, collector, critic and champion of cubism. The critic Louis Vauxcelles said of the show that Braque was a daring man who despised form and reduced everything, places, figures and houses alike, to geometric schemas, to cubes. Braque's fascination with cubism lasted: he used elements of it for the rest of his career, even after Picasso had moved on.
- 1922. His exhibition at the Salon d'Automne in Paris put him firmly in the public eye.
- 1933. He had a big show of his plaster engravings at the Kunsthalle in Basel.
- 1937. He won first prize at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh.
Fauvism and cubism compared
Fauvism, best exemplified by Matisse, was a short-lived preoccupation with strong colour, simplification, abstraction and loose brushwork. Detail was ignored, which is why its painters were called 'wild beasts'. It was a stepping stone towards cubism.
Cubism was a preoccupation with multiple viewpoints. It broke up the form in question and suggested movement where there might be none. Braque spoke of shattering objects into fragments as a way of getting to the essence of their composition. He and Picasso were the leading cubists and often worked side by side, producing very similar interpretations of the same subject.
Posters and prints
From the late 1930s to the 1950s Braque took up poster-making. He was encouraged by Fernand Mourlot, whose Mourlot Studios invited the great artists of the day to create original work on site that could then be mass-produced by lithography. It was a welcome source of income for artists like Braque. A generation earlier, prints had to be made by hand, a skilled job. Now the man in the street could afford faithfully reproduced fine art.
Personal life
In 1910 Picasso introduced Braque to a model, Marcelle Lapré. They married two years later and settled in Sorgues, in Provence.
Braque joined the French army in 1914, at the start of the First World War. The following year he was so seriously wounded in the head that he was temporarily blinded and had to be trepanned (the skull is drilled to relieve pressure). It took him a couple of years to recover. He lived a long life, though ill health later kept him from big projects, and died of a cardiac arrest at 81.
Subject matter
Braque began with landscapes and later turned to still life, partly because he could move around a smaller subject, touch it and see it from different angles. That tactile approach may explain why his work came to incorporate textures. He never stopped experimenting with bright colour, and he painted more realistically as his style matured.
Conclusion
Braque was good enough to rub shoulders with Picasso, who clearly admired him, and his work remains popular today. That says it all.
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You'll want to frame whatever you buy. Any good framer will show you a range of solutions and advise on what suits the work and where it will hang. EasyFrame is on 01234 856 501 and sales@EasyFrame.co.uk, and they'll always chat even if you don't want to buy!