Georges Braque French, 1882-1963
Georges Braque was a French painter, most known for his important contributions to Fauvism and the role he played in the development of Cubism in close collaboration with Pablo Picasso.
Georges Braque was born on May 13, 1882, in Argenteuil-sur-Seine, France.
He grew up in Le Havre (Normandy) and studied at the local École des Beaux-Arts from 1897 to 1899. He left for Paris to study under a master decorator to receive his craftsman certificate in 1901.
From 1902 to 1904 he painted at the Académie Humbert in Paris, where he met Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia. By 1906 Braque’s work was no longer Impressionist but Fauve in style; after spending that summer in Antwerp with Othon Friesz, he showed his Fauve work the following year in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. His first solo show was in Paris at Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler’s gallery in 1908.
From 1909 Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso started working together and their developing cubist style by 1911 their styles were extremely similar. In 1912 they started to incorporate collage elements into their paintings and to experiment with the papier collé (pasted paper) technique.
Their artistic collaboration lasted until the begining of the war in 1914. Braque was called to serve in the French army and was severely wounded in a battle that counted 17000 death in the French forces. Upon his recovery in 1917 he began a close friendship with Juan Gris.
After the war Braque’s work became more free and less schematic. His fame grew in 1922 as the result of an exhibition at the Salon d’Automne in Paris.
In the mid-1920s Braque designed the decor for two Sergei Diaghilev ballets. By the end of the decade, he had returned to a more realistic interpretation of nature, although certain aspects of Cubism always remained present in his work.
In 1931 Braque made his first engraved plasters and began to portray mythological subjects. His first important retrospective took place in 1933 at the Kunsthalle Basel.
He won first prize at the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, in 1937.
During World War II Braque remained in Paris. His paintings at that time, primarily still lives and interior scenes, became darker. In addition to paintings, Braque also made lithographs, engravings, and sculptures.
From the late 1940s he treated various recurring themes such as birds, landscapes, and seascapes. In 1954 he designed stained-glass windows for the church of Varengeville (Normandy). During the last few years of his life, Braque’s fragile health prevented him from undertaking further large-scale commissions, but he continued to paint, make lithographs, and design jewelry. He died on August 31, 1963, in Paris.