Georges Braque

Braque, Georges 

Born May 13, 1882, in Argenteuil; died Aug. 31, 1963, in Paris. French artist; studied in the fine-arts schools of Le Havre and Paris.

Beginning in 1905, Braque painted landscapes in the spirit of fauvism. Beginning in 1908 he came under the influence of P. Cézanne; this made him, along with P. Picasso, a founder of cubism. In almost monochromatic cubist compositions (Still Life of Musical Instruments, 1908; Woman With Guitar, 1913—National Museum of Modern Art, Paris), Braque strove for abstraction of form and variety of texture. He included bits of paper and wood in his paintings and added sand to them. After 1917, Braque gradually moved away from cubism and painted flat canvases of more varied color (still life’s, landscapes, and pictures with human figures), in which the line achieved an almost ornamental expressiveness and flexibility. Braque also worked as a graphic artist, sculptor, and theater artist.

REFERENCE

Hauert, R., and A. Verdet. Georges Braque. Geneva, 1956.