Kubism (0)

KUBISM
Kubism on 20. sajandi kunstivool, mis hakkas kujunema Pariisis 1907. aastal Pablo Picasso ja Georges Braque 'i töödes. Kubistide eelkäijaks oli Paul Cézanne.
Mõiste "kubism" võttis kasutusele prantsuse kriitik Louis Vauxcelles ja see vihjab kuubist lähtuvale kujutamisele. Kriitik kirjeldas Braque'i töid 1908. aastal väljendiga bizarreries cubiques (kuubilised veidrused).
Kubistide eesmärk oli vabastada teos jutustavast sisust ja kujutada asju ( muusikainstrumendid , natüürmordid, maastikud jne) geomeetrilistena ( kuup , silinder jne), tükeldatud pindadena või stereomeetrilistena (kujutada esemeid ühekorraga mitmest vaatevinklist).
Algset kubismi , perioodi, mis algas 1909. aastal, nimetatakse analüütiliseks kubismiks. Seda perioodi iseloomustab motiivide (majad, puud ja natüürmordid) lahutamine justkui algosadeks (geomeetrilisteks kujunditeks) ning nendest uue pildi ülesehitamine.
Teine, hilisem vool kubismis, kannab nime sünteetiline kubism (alguseks peetakse 1912. aastat). Kunstnik paneb esmalt paika vormid ja värvid ja alles siis mõtleb välja motiivi, tavaliselt natüürmordi. Sünteetilise kubismi esindajaks on hispaanlane Juan Gris . Sünteetiliseks nimetatakse ka Picasso ja Braque'i kubismi pärast 1912. aastat.
Aastast 1912 hakkasid kubistid oma piltidele kleepima juurde ajalehti, tapeeti ja kangaid. Hakati kasutama kollaažitehnikat.
Värvid kubistide maalidel on tagasihoidlikud ja tuhmid. Kõige tüüpilisemad on hallid - pruunid -tumerohelised ja kahvatusinised kooslused. Siiski, sünteetilist kubismi iseloomustab sageli ka suuremate geomeetriliste pindade ja erksamate ning puhtamate värvitoonide kasutamine (Juan Gris). Väga kaugele läks värvide kasutamisel Robert Delaunay . Seda suunda on hakatud nimetama orfismiks. Sünteetilisest kubismist eemaldus ka Fernand Léger, kes oma töödes kasutas tumedat värvi silindreid ja torusid. Seda suunda hakati nimetama tubismiks.
Eestis viljeldi kubismi 1920. aastate lõpuni. Ühed järjekindlamad kubistid olid Arnold Akberg ja Jaan Vahtra . Jaan Vahtra eestvedamisel loodi 1923. aastal Eesti Kunstnikkude Rühm.
Pablo Picasso
Biograafia
Pablo sündis José Ruiz y Blasco ja María Picasso y Lópezi perre esimese lapsena. Tema täisnimi oli Pablo (ka Pablito) Diego José Santiago Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno Crispín Crispiniano de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz Picasso.
Tema isa oli kunstiteadlane, kes tegutses peamiselt kohalikus muuseumis kuraatorina. Picasso esimesed kunstialased teadmised on just pärit isalt, näiteks õlimaalide tegemise oskus. Kogu lapsepõlve kestel külastas Pablo mitmeid kunstikoole, kus tema isa tunde andis. Vaatamata suurele kogemustepagasile mis nende aastatega kogunes ei lõpetanud Picasso kunagi Madridi Kunstiakadeemiat. Picasso esimesed kunstikatsetused leidsid aset Barcelonas. Sellal toetas teda Jaime Sabartés, kes oli hiljem palju aastaid Picasso sekretär. Tema esimesed tööd olid mõjutatud peamiselt isa eestkostest. 23. eluaastal asus ta Prantsusmaale. Siit said ka alguse tema erinevad kunstiperioodid.
Peale Esimest maailmasõda muutus Picasso radikaalseks patsifistiks. Suurkunstnik ei võtnud osa Esimest maailmasõjast, Hispaania kodusõjast ega isegi Teisest maailmasõjast ainuüksi patsifistlikel printsiipidel. Peale Esimest maailmasõda austas ta kõrgelt kommunistlikku elulaadi, olles ise äge kommunist . Selle sõjaperioodide üks kuulsamaid teoseid on "Guernica", kus kajastatakse sõjakoledusi ja verevalamise mõttetust.
Peale Teist maailmasõda astus Pablo Prantsuse Kommunistlikku Parteisse. Kuigi partei kritiseerimine Stalini juhikultuse ümber jahendas kunstniku suhtumist kommunismi, sellest hoolimata ei hüljanud ta oma nägemusi ideoloogiast kui ühest riigikorrast. 1962 sai ta lojaalse kommunismipooldajana ka Lenini rahupreemia.
Picasso eraelu
Juba lapsepõlvest peale meeldis Picassole suhelda inimestega, ta lausa vihkas üksindust, välja arvatud juhtudel, kui ta maalis mõnda oma kunstitöödest. Tema sõprade rohkust on raske hinnata, kuigi neid, kes tema töödele otsest mõju avaldasid, ei olegi nii palju.
Esimestel Pariisi-aastatel oli tal eriti lähedane suhe Fernande Olivieriga, naisega, kes teda suuresti inspireeris. Kui Picasso Fernande'i hüljas, soojenesid tema suhted Marcelle Humbert’ga, Picasso kutsus teda hellitavalt Evaks. Picasso armastus naise vastu kajastub ka paljudes tema kubistlikes teostes. Kui Marcelle’l tuvastati vähk, oli entusiastlik kunstnik oma muusale igal sammul toeks.
1918. aastal abiellus Pablo Picasso Olga Khoklovaga, kes oli elukutseline baleriin. Sel ajajärgul elab Pablo luksuslikku ja kõrgkihile omast elulaadi. Abielupaaril sünnib ka poeg Paulo , kes kasvab liiderlikuks ja kombelõdvaks mootorratturiks (elukutseline võistleja), ta on kaua aega oma isa sohver. Kuigi Olgaga tekkisid mitmed suhte jahenemise perioodid, kestis abielu siiski paberite järgi 1955. aastani. Oleks rumal uskuda , et Picasso sel ajal ei kurameerinud ka teiste daamidega, seejuures peamiselt väga noortega . Kui Pariis 1944. aastal vabastati, kiindus Picasso noorde kunstiõpilasse - Françoise Gilot’. Neil sündis 2 last: Claude ja Paloma.
Järgnesid mitmed lühisuhted ja afäärid: Picasso ei olnud inimene, kes hoiaks oma südame ainult ühele ja ainsale. Kunstnik oli tänu oma laiale sõpruskonnale kutsutud osalema ka mitmetes filmides , millest ta ei loobunud . Filmides mängis ta peamiselt iseennast. Ehedamaiks näiteks võiks tuua “Orfeuse testament ”, aastal 1959 valminud linateos .
Kunsti(stiilide) perioodid
Picasso töid on sageli kategoriseeritud erinevatesse perioodesse. Ehkki tema kunstnikukarjääri hilisemad tööd on sageli vaidlustatud erinevate perioodide suhtes. Sellest hoolimata saab eristada järgmisi perioode :
Sinine periood (1901– 1904 ), perioodi iseloomustab süngus, sinisetoonilised maalid on mõjutatud peamiselt tema Hispaanias olemisest ja reisimisest, sügavat mõju töödele avaldab ka tema lähisõbra surm. Piltidel kujutatakse akrobaate, arlekiine, prostituute ja vaeseid. Eriti iseloomulik on sel perioodil vägivaldse anatoomia kujutamine. Tähtsamateks töödeks võiks lugeda: "Vana kitarrimängija" (1903), tema autoportree, "Tragöödia", "La Celestina"
Roosa periood (1905–1907), seda ajavahemikku iseloomustab lõbusam ja rõõmsam stiil roosa- ja oranžitaoliste värvidega. Ka siin domineerib maalidel arlekiinide ja akrobaatide rohkus. Tema tööd on mõjutatud Fernande Olivierist, skulptor ja kunstnik Pariisis. Rõõmsameelsus töödes on tingitud ka Pablo Pariisis olemise algusaastate romantilisusest ja õhkamisest, mida ta suurlinnas alguses koges . Selle perioodi tippteosteks võiks lugeda: "Arlekiinide perekond", "Arlekiinide perekond ahviga", "Kaks noorukit", "Tüdruk kitsega", "Alasti poiss"
Aafrikat viljelev kunstiperiood (1908–1909), sel ajal on Picasso süübinud Aafrika motiividele ja mandri rahvuste eripäradele ja tunnusjoontele. Selle perioodi tippteoseks on "Avignioni neiud "
Analüütilise kubismi periood ehk cezanne ’elik periood (1909–1912), nagu nimetuski ütleb on tegemist kubismi rakendusega. Selle perioodi peamine mõjutaja oli Picasso jaoks Georges Braque, kellega tema tööd ka suuresti sarnanevad. Tööd iseloomustavad loodusvormide allutamine geomeetrilisele vormile. Maalidest võiks nimetada järgmisi: "Kitarrimängija", "Tütarlaps mandoliiniga", " Willhelm Uhde portree", "Akordionist"
Sünteetilise (kubismi) kunsti periood (1912–1919), sellele perioodile on iseloomulikud kollaaž ja paberi lõikus. Mainimisväärseteks töödeks on: " Kitarr ja viiul ", "Muusikariistad", "Itaalia tüdruk", "Naine tugitoolis", " Arlekiin viiuliga".
Viimased elukümnendid Picasso kunstikarjääris
1950ndatel aastatel pühendus Pablo teiste suurkunstnike tööde imiteerimisse, ta lõi nende põhjal uusi maale. Teda huvitas sel perioodil eriti Velázquiz’, Goya, Poussini ja Courbet' teosed. Sellel aastakümnel pani ta suurt rõhku ka skulptuuride loomisele. Eriti silmapaistvaks said tema tööd Chicagos , kuulsaim neist kannab isegi nime " Chicago Picasso". Selle skulptuuri motiivi ja kujutatut ei oska keegi kindlalt öelda. Arvatakse nagu olevat lind, hobune, isegi naine või lihtsalt üks abstraktne kunstniku üllitis. On huvitav tõdeda, et Picasso loobus saamast 100 000 dollarit säärase šedöövri eest.
Kunstniku elu kaks viimast aastakümmet olid kõige viljakamad tema pika kunstikarjääri jooksul. Pablo kunstilaad sel perioodil oli segu paljudest kunstiliikidest, mis tema töödes ka kajastusid. Pablo tegeles palju vasegravüüriga. Selle aja tööd on tal üsna erootilise kallakuga. On huvitav märkida, et mõned tema tööd ei olnud mitte signeeritud ainult kuupäevaga, vaid isegi numbritega; see tähendas, et ta oli päevas loonud mitu erinevat tööd ! Sellest ajast pärinevad näiteks säärased tööd nagu: "Musketäär", "Härjavõitleja ja alasti naine", "Embus" ja üks viimased töid, mis valmis 1972. aastal oli tema enda autoportree.
20. sajandi suurkunstnik suri 8. aprillil 1973 ning maeti Vauvenargues pargi surnuaeda. Matuste juures oli kummaline, et tema oma lapsi ei lastud osalema neil peiedel. On isegi teada Pablo Picasso elu viimased sõnad. Need kõlavad drink to me, mis peaks eesti keelde panduna tähendama ‘jooge minu heaks’.
Pärand maailmale
Suurkunstniku pärandit maailmale on raske hinnata. Vaatamata omaenda kunstiteoste tohutule arvule armastas ta koguda ta teiste kuulsate maalikunstnike, näiteks Henri Matisse töid. Pärast kunstniku surma oli paljude Picasso maalide saatus üpris lahtine. Paljud suurteosed läksid oksjonile, osad kunstimuuseumidesse jne. Tema tööde hinnad oksjonil olid hiiglasuured, näiteks töö "Pierrette’de abielu" müüdi 51 miljoni dollari eest.
1996. aastal loodi kunstniku eluloofilm – pealkirjaga "Looja ja hävitaja Picasso"
Georges Braque
Georges Braque (13. mai 1882 Argenteuil-sur- Seine , Prantsusmaa – 31. august 1963 Pariis) oli prantsuse kunstnik, kubismi esindaja.
Georges Braque kasvas üles Pariisi lähedal Le Harves. Mõnda aega töötas maalrina, õhtuti õppis École des Beaux - Arts kunstikoolis ( 1897 –1899). Aastatel 1902 –1904 õppis Pariisis Academie Humbert'is.
Georges Braque teenis Esimese maailmasõjas Prantsuse sõjaväes ja sai raskelt haavata .
Ta kasutas maalis esimesena kirjatähti, imiteeris puu ja marmori faktuuri ning leiutas kollaažitehnika
Robert Delaunay
Robert Delaunay (12 April 1885, Paris – 25 October 1941) was a French artist who used Orphism, which is similar to abstract art, abstraction and cubism in his work . Delaunay concentrated on Orphism, while his later works were more abstract, reminiscent of Paul Klee. His key influence related to bold use of colour , and a clear love of experimentation of both depth and tone . While he was a child , Delaunay's parents divorced, and he was raised by his uncle , in La Ronchère ( near Bourges). He took up painting at an early age and, by 1903, he was producing mature imagery in a confident, impressionistic style.
In 1908, after a term in the military working as a regimental librarian, he met Sonia Terk, who he later married , though at the time she was married to a German art dealer who she would soon divorce . In 1909, Delaunay began to paint a series of studies of the city of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. The following year , he married Terk, and the couple settled in a studio apartment in Paris, where they later had a son. At the invitation of Wassily Kandinsky , Delaunay joined The Blue Rider (Der Blaue Reiter), a Munich- based group of abstract artists , in 1911, and his art took a turn for the abstract.
The outbreak of World War I found Delaunay and his wife vacationing in Spain , and they settled with friends in Portugal for the duration of the conflict. During this period , the couple took on several jobs designing costumes for the Madrid Opera , and Sonia Delaunay started a fashion design business. After the war, in 1921, they returned to Paris. Delaunay continued to work in a mostly abstract style. During the 1937 World Fair in Paris, Delaunay participated in the design of the railway and air travel pavilions. When World War II erupted, the Delaunays moved to the Auvergne, in an effort to avoid the invading German forces. Suffering from cancer , Delaunay was unable to endure being moved around , and his health deteriorated. He died from cancer on 25 October 1941 in Montpellier.
The Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art ( Japan ), the Albright-Knox Art Gallery (Buffalo, New York ), the Art Institute of Chicago, the Berkeley Art Museum, the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum (Spain), National Museum of Serbia in Belgrade, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Guggenheim Museum (New York City), the Honolulu Academy of Arts, Kunstmuseum Basel (Switzerland), the Museum of Modern Art (New York City), the National Gallery of Victoria (Australia), the National Galleries of Scotland , the New Art Gallery (Walsall, England ), Palazzo Cavour (Turin, Italy ), Palazzo Ruspoli (Rome), the Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice) and the Philadelphia Museum of Art are among the public collections holding works by Robert Delaunay.
Jazz expert Charles Delaunay is Robert and Sonia's son. Charles continued to devote his pieces to his mother and father after they were deceased.
Fernand Léger
Fernand Léger photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1936
Born
February 4, 1881(1881-02-04)
Argentan, Orne
Died
August 17, 1955 (aged 74)
Gif-sur-Yvette
Nationality
French
Field
painting, printmaking and film maker
Movement
Tubism, Cubism, Modernism
Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painter , sculptor, and filmmaker .
Biography
Léger was born in the Argentan, Orne, Basse-Normandie, where his father raised cattle . Fernand Léger initially trained as an architect from 1897-1899 before moving in 1900 to Paris, where he supported himself as an architectural draftsman. After military service in Versailles in 1902-1903, he enrolled at the School of Decorative Arts; he also applied to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts but was rejected. He nevertheless attended the Beaux-Arts as a non-enrolled student , spending what he described as "three empty and useless years " studying with Gérôme and others , while also studying at the Académie Julian .[1] He began to work seriously as a painter only at the age of 25. At this point his work showed the influence of Impressionism, as seen in Le Jardin de ma mère (My Mother's Garden ) of 1905, one of the few paintings from this period that he did not later destroy . A new emphasis on drawing and geometry appeared in Léger's work after he saw the Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d'Automne in 1907.[2]
In 1909 he moved to Montparnasse and met such leaders of the avant -garde as Archipenko, Lipchitz, Chagall, and Robert Delaunay. His major painting of this period is Nudes in the Forest (1909-10), in which Léger displayed a personal form of Cubism—his critics called it "Tubism" for its emphasis on cylindrical forms —that made no use of the collage technique pioneered by Braque and Picasso.[3]
In 1910 he joined with several other artists, including Delaunay, Jacques Villon , Henri Le Fauconnier, Albert Gleizes, Francis Picabia , and Marie Laurencin to form an offshoot of the Cubist movement, the Puteaux Group—also called the Section d'Or (The Golden Section). Léger was influenced during this time by Italian Futurism , and his paintings, from then until 1914, became increasingly abstract. Their vocabulary of tubular, conical, and cubed forms are laconically rendered in rough patches of primary colors plus green , black and white, as seen in the series of paintings with the title Contrasting Forms.
Léger's experiences in World War I had a significant effect on his work. Mobilized in August 1914 for service in the French Army, he spent two years at the front in Argonne. He produced many sketches of artillery pieces, airplanes, and fellow soldiers while in the trenches , and painted Soldier with a Pipe (1916) while on furlough. In September 1916 he almost died after a mustard gas attack by the German troops at Verdun . During a period of convalescence in Villepinte he painted The Card Players (1917), a canvas whose robot-like, monstrous figures reflect the ambivalence of his experience of war. As he explained:
...I was stunned by the sight of the breech of a 75 millimeter in the sunlight. It was the magic of light on the white metal. That's all it took for me to forget the abstract art of 1912-1913. The crudeness, variety, humor , and downright perfection of certain men around me, their precise sense of utilitarian reality and its application in the midst of the life-and- death drama we were in...made me want to paint in slang with all its color and mobility .[4]
This painting marked the beginning of his " mechanical period", during which the figures and objects he created were characterized by sleekly rendered tubular and machine -like forms. Starting in 1918, he also produced the first paintings in the Disk series, in which disks suggestive of traffic lights figure prominently.[5] In December 1919 he married Jeanne -Augustine Lohy, and in 1920 he met Le Corbusier , who would remain a lifelong friend .
The "mechanical" works Léger painted in the 1920s , in their formal clarity as well as in their subject matter—the mother and child , the female nude, figures in an ordered landscape —are typical of the postwar " return to order " in the arts, and link him to the tradition of French figurative painting represented by Poussin and Corot .[6] In his paysages animés (animated landscapes) of 1921, figures and animals exist harmoniously in landscapes made up of streamlined forms. The frontal compositions, firm contours, and smoothly blended colors of these paintings frequently recall the works of Henri Rousseau , an artist Léger greatly admired and whom he had met in 1909.
They also share traits with the work of Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant who together had founded Purism, a style intended as a rational , mathematically based corrective to the impulsiveness of cubism. Combining the classical with the modern, Léger's Nude on a Red Background (1927) depicts a monumental , expressionless woman , machinelike in form and color. His still life compositions from this period are dominated by stable, interlocking rectangular formations in vertical and horizontal orientation. The Siphon of 1924, a still life based on an advertisement in the popular press for the aperitif Campari, represents the high-water mark of the Purist aesthetic in Léger's work.[7] Its balanced composition and fluted shapes suggestive of classical columns are brought together with a quasi-cinematic close -up of a hand holding a bottle.
As an enthusiast of the modern, Léger was greatly attracted to cinema , and for a time he considered giving up painting for filmmaking .[8] In 1923-24 he designed the set for the laboratory scene in Marcel L'Herbier's L'Inhumaine (The Inhuman One). In 1924, in collaboration with Dudley Murphy , George Antheil, and Man Ray, Léger produced and directed the iconic and Futurism-influenced film, Ballet Mécanique (Mechanical Ballet). Neither abstract nor narrative , it is a series of images of a woman's lips and teeth, close-up shots of ordinary objects, and repeated images of human activities and machines in rhythmic movement.[9]
In collaboration with Amédée Ozenfant he established a free school where he taught from 1924, with Alexandra Exter and Marie Laurencin. He produced the first of his " mural paintings", influenced by Le Corbusier's theories, in 1925. Intended to be incorporated into polychrome architecture , they are among his most abstract paintings, featuring flat areas of color that appear to advance or recede.[10]
Starting in 1927, the character of Léger's work gradually changed as organic and irregular forms assumed greater importance .[11] The figural style that emerged in the 1930s is fully displayed in the Two Sisters of 1935, and in several versions of Adam and Eve.[12] With characteristic humor, he portrayed Adam in a striped bathing suit, or sporting a tattoo.
In 1931 , Leger visited New York City and decorated Nelson Rockefeller's apartment.[13] In 1935, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City presented an exhibition of his work.
During World War II Léger lived in the United States , where he found inspiration in the novel sight of industrial refuse in the landscape. The shock of juxtaposed natural forms and mechanical elements , the "tons of abandoned machines with flowers cropping up from within , and birds perching on top of them " exemplified what he called the "law of contrast ".[14] His enthusiasm for such contrasts resulted in such works as The Tree in the Ladder of 1943-44, and Romantic Landscape of 1946. A major work of 1944, Three Musicians (Museum of Modern Art, New York), reprises a composition of 1930. A folk-like composition reminiscent of Rousseau, it exploits the law of contrasts in its realistic juxtaposition of the three men and their instruments.
Stained -glass window at the Central University of Venezuela , c.1950s
Upon his return to France in 1945, he joined the Communist Party . During this period his work became less abstract, and he produced many monumental figure compositions depicting scenes of popular life featuring acrobats, builders, divers, and country outings. Charlotta Kotik has pointed out that Leger's "determination to depict the common man, as well as to create for him, was a result of socialist theories widespread among the avant-garde both before and after World War II. However , Léger's social conscience was not that of a fierce Marxist, but of a passionate humanist ".[15] His varied projects included book illustrations, murals, stained-glass windows , mosaics, polychrome ceramic sculptures , and set and costume designs.
After the death of his wife in 1950, Léger married Nadia Khodossevitch in 1952. In his final years he lectured in Bern, designed mosaics and stained-glass windows for the Central University of Venezuela in Caracas, Venezuela, and painted Country Outing, The Camper, and the series The Big Parade . In 1954 he began a project for a mosaic for the São Paulo Opera, which he would not live to finish. Fernand Léger died at his home in 1955 and is buried in Gif-sur-Yvette, Essonne.
Legacy
Léger wrote in 1945 that "the object in modern painting must become the main character and overthrow the subject. If, in turn, the human form becomes an object, it can considerably liberate possibilities for the modern artist." As he explained in a 1949 essay , by allowing the object to replace the subject, "we were able to consider the human figure as a plastic value, not as a sentimental value. That is why the human figure has remained willfully inexpressive throughout the evolution of my work".[16] As the first painter to take as his idiom the imagery of the machine age, and to make the objects of consumer society the subjects of his paintings, Léger has been called a progenitor of Pop art.[17]
He was active as a teacher for many years. Among his pupils were Nadir Afonso, Robert Colescott, Charlotte Gilbertson, Hananiah Harari, Asger Jorn, Beverly Pepper, Victor Reinganum, Marcel Mouly and George L. K. Morris.
In 1952, a pair of Léger murals was installed in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations headquarters in New York, New York.
In 1960, the Musée Fernand Léger was opened in Biot, Alpes-Maritimes,France.
In November 2003, his painting, La femme en rouge et vert sold for $22,407,500 United States dollars. His sculptures have been selling in excess of 8 million dollars.
In August 2008, one of Léger's paintings owned by Wellesley College's Davis Museum, Mother and Child, was reported missing. It is believed to have disappeared some time between April 9, 2007 and November 19, 2007. A $100,000 reward is being offered for information that leads to the safe return of the painting.[2]
Juan Gris
Birth name
José Victoriano González-Pérez
Born
March 23, 1887(1887-03-23)
Died
May 11, 1927 (aged 40)
Nationality
Spanish
Field
Painting, Sculpture
Movement
Cubism
José Victoriano González-Pérez (March 23, 1887 – May 11, 1927), better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and worked in France most of his life. His works are closely connected to the emergence of an innovative artistic genre—Cubism, creating several of the movement's most distinctive works.[1]
Biography
Born in Madrid, he studied mechanical drawing at the Escuela de Artes y Manufacturas in Madrid from 1902 to 1904, during which time he contributed drawings to local periodicals. From 1904 to 1905 he studied painting with the academic artist José Maria Carbonero. It was probably in 1905 that José González adopted the more distinctive pseudonym Juan Gris.[2]
In 1906 he moved to Paris and became friends with Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger, and in 1915 he was painted by his friend, Amedeo Modigliani. In Paris, Gris followed the lead of another friend and fellow countryman, Pablo Picasso. Although he submitted darkly humorous illustrations to journals such as Le Rire, L'assiette au beurre, Le Charivari, and Le Cri de Paris, Gris began to paint seriously in 1910, and by 1912 he had developed a personal Cubist style. His portrait of Picasso in 1912 is a significant early Cubist painting done by a painter other than Picasso or Braque. (Although he regarded Picasso as a teacher, Gertrude Stein acknowledged that Gris "was the one person that Picasso would have willingly wiped off the map.")
At first Gris painted in the analytic style of Cubism, but after 1913 he began his conversion to synthetic Cubism, of which he became a steadfast interpreter, with extensive use of papier collé. Unlike Picasso and Braque, whose Cubist works were monochromatic, Gris painted with bright harmonious colors in daring, novel combinations in the manner of his friend Matisse.
In 1924, he first designed ballet sets and costumes for Sergei Diaghilev and the famous Ballets Russes.
Gris articulated most of his aesthetic theories during 1924 and 1925. He delivered his definitive lecture, Des possibilités de la peinture, at the Sorbonne in 1924. Major Gris exhibitions took place at the Galerie Simon in Paris and the Galerie Flechtheim in Berlin in 1923, and at the Galerie Flechtheim in Düsseldorf in 1925.
He died in Boulogne-sur-Seine (Paris) in the spring of 1927 at the age of forty , leaving a wife, Josette, and a son, Georges.
His top auction price is $20.8 million which was set by his 1915 still life titled, Livre, pipe et verres.[1]