Georges Braque was a major 20th-century French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his alliance with Fauvism from 1905, and the role he played in the development of Cubism. Braque's work between 1908 and 1912 is closely associated with that of his colleague Pablo Picasso. Their respective Cubist works were indistinguishable for many years, yet the quiet nature of Braque was partially eclipsed by the fame and notoriety of Picasso.
Paintings by Georges Braque
Pitcher and Violin (1910)
French painter Georges Braque's Violin and Pitcher (1910) is an early and pivotal example of analytical cubism. Art historian William Rubin said, "Only with the stunning and magisterial Violin and Pitcher...does Braque's work fully match its inventiveness" while also for the first time equaling the "weight and density" with that of Picasso, Braque's cubism co-inventor. It is held in the Kunstmuseum, in Basel.
Violin and Pitcher was part of a series of still lives that Braque painted in 1910–1912; and is typical of Braque and Picasso's close joint project of analytical cubism during 1910–1912.
Fishing Boats (1909)
Fishing Boats or The Port is a painting by the French artist Georges Braque, created in 1909 in Paris. It is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in the John A. and Audrey Jones Beck Collection. It was purchased at auction in 1968, and donated to the museum in 1974.
This oil on canvas is a cubist landscape representing a port in Normandy, fishing boats in the foreground.
Houses at l'Estaque (1908)
Houses at l'Estaque (French: Maisons à l'Estaque, or Maisons et arbre) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Georges Braque executed in 1908. It is considered either an important Proto-Cubist landscape or the first Cubist landscape. The painting prompted art critic Henri Matisse to mock it as being composed of cubes which led to the name of the movement.
This painting by Braque was refused at the Salon d'Automne in 1908. Louis Vauxcelles recounted how Henri Matisse told him at the time, "Braque has just sent in [to the 1908 Salon d'Automne] a painting made of little cubes". The critic Charles Morice relayed Matisse's words and spoke of Braque's little cubes. The motif of the viaduct at l'Estaque had inspired Braque to produce three paintings marked by the simplification of form and deconstruction of perspective. Six landscapes painted at L'Estaque signed Georges Braque were presented to the Jury of the Salon d'Automne: Guérin, Georges Rouault, and Matisse rejected Braque's entire submission. Guérin and Albert Marquet elected to keep two in play. Braque withdrew the two in protest, placing the blame on Matisse.
Woman with a Mandolin (1910)
Woman with a Mandolin is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Georges Braque, created in 1910. The painting is in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, in Madrid.
Braque made this painting in the spring of 1910 and it belongs to his analytical cubism phase. He was probably influenced to create paintings in this style by an exhibition of Camille Corot at the Salon d'Automne of 1909, which he visited with his friend Pablo Picasso. The work of Corot inspired him to create works in which living models would be connected to musical instruments—in this case, a mandolin. The artist returned finally to the depiction of the human figure, after two years entirely devoted to landscapes and still lifes. Musical instruments became a typical feature in cubist paintings. The painting was made in the oval shape, and its believed to have been the first cubist painting made in this format.
The Viaduct at L'Estaque (1908)
The Viaduct at L'Estaque (French: Viaduc à l'Estaque) is an oil-on-canvas painting by Georges Braque, executed in 1907. The painting has the dimensions of 63.5 by 78.74 cm. It is housed at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Braque made several trips to the south of France, from 1906 to 1910. He took particular interest in the port of L'Estaque, west of Marseille, where he made several paintings. Braque shows the influence of the Fauves and Paul Cézanne in the landscapes he created there in 1907. The nonnaturalistic colours of the Fauves are combined with the reduction to simple geometric forms of the landscape, in a similar way to Cézanne. The artist's own style is also characteristic of this work. By this time, Braque got to know his friend Pablo Picasso's new style of cubism, which caught his interest and he would soon adopt.
Mandora (painting) (1914)
Mandora (originally titled La Mandore) is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Georges Braque, painted in 1909–10. It is in the Tate Modern, in London, which purchased it in 1966.
It is acknowledged as a masterpiece of analytical cubism It presents a string instrument, the mandora, and its subject is typical of the Cubist painters' interest in the depiction of musical instruments. Braque explained his own interest: "In the first place because I was surrounded by them, and secondly because their plasticity, their volumes, related to my particular concept of still life".
Fruit Dish (1908)
Fruit Dish (French: Le Compotier) is an oil-on-canvas painting executed in 1908–1909 by Georges Braque. It has the dimensions of 53 by 64 cm. It his held at the Moderna Museet, in Stockholm.
After becoming influenced by Paul Cézanne, Braque went to embrace cubism in 1908, due to the influence of Pablo Picasso. This cubist still life depicts apples, pears, a lemon and perhaps a banana in and around a fruit bowl on a table. The still life became a usual theme for cubist painters. In this painting, where the influence of Cézanne and Picasso is apparent, the fruits and the bowl expand beyond the confines of a singular viewpoint, and the traditional notions of perspective are dissolved.
Still Life (Braque, 1911) (1911)
Still Life, also referred to as Glass and Guitar (French: Verre à pied et guitare), is a 1911 oil painting by the French artist Georges Braque, now in the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (inventory number 55.974.0.720). It was the first cubist painting ever bought by a public collection of France.
Still Life had belonged to Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler until 1921, when his collection was confiscated by the French government, and sold. The architect and designer Pierre Chareau bought the painting and sold it two years later to the Strasbourg museum.
Trees at l'Estaque (1908)
Georges Braque, Trees at L'Estaque, 1908, oil on canvas, 35 1/2 x 30 1/2 inches