| Georges Braque was born in Argenteuil in 1892. From an early age, he attended evening classes at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Le Havre, where he met Othon Friez and Raoul Dufy. In 1904 he set up his studio in Paris and three years later showed three paintings at le Salon des Indépendants. Braque regularly went down to l'Estaque, near Marseilles, to paint ; the works were shown by Kahnweiller in his gallery, the foreword to the catalogue of the exhibition being by the poet Apollinaire. Kahnweiller also arranged for Braque to meet Picasso ; the latter had jsut finished the Demoiselles d'Avignon, which made a strong impression on Braque. Braque then painted several pictures in the south of France, all of which were refused at the 1908 Salon d'Automne. The critics were unsparing about Braque, and Vauxcelles wrote in the "Gil Blas" review of the 14 th of November 1908 : "Mr Braque is a daring young man, he despises form, and reduces everything, landscapes, people, houses, to geometric diagrams, to cubes". The term was coined... Braque and Picasso 's frendship was strengthened, and until 1914 both artists worked in close collaboration, mutually influencing each other, and introducing into their pictures stencilled letters and numbers, imitations of wood and marble, sand and other substances, collages etc. But in 1914, Braque was called up, and was seriously injured in the head. After a long convalescence, he started painting again in 1917, in a less angular and more colourful manner. From 1933 to 1938 he frequently returned to the still-life theme, and in 1949 finished the big "artist's studio" series, as well as designed the stage scenery for Molière 's Tartuffe at Jouvet request. In 1952, he was commissioned to decorate a ceiling in the Louvre ; in 1956, he made five stained-glass windows for a chapel in Varengeville, where he owned a house. Braque then began his work on the bird theme.
Georges Braque 's interest in prints dates from 1907. Between 1907 and 1912, he produced engravings in the cubist style, using etching and dry-point. He made his first lithograph in 1921, a still-life published by Kahnweiller. Throughout his life, Braque continued to make prints, mastering the techniques of etching, lithography, aquatint, woodcut. He engraved work includes joint productions with major poets : Satie (Léger comme un oeuf, with one etching) ; Ponge (Cinq sapates, five aquatints) ; Paulhan (Braque le Patron, two lithographs) ; Apollinaire (si je mourais là-bas with 18 woodcuts) ; Jouhandeau (La descente aux enfers, with 4 lithographs) ; Saint-John Perse (L'ordre des oiseaux, twelve etchings and colour aquatints). The most important of these productions is René Char 's Lettera amorosa, for which Braque made twenty-nine colour lithographs. The artist has also print for collective books : "Un poème dans chaque livre" from Eluard, illustrated with 16 etchings by Miro, Giacometti, Chagall, Masson etc. ; "Sentences sans paroles" with an engraving of Giacometti ; "Paroles peintes" with prints of Chagall, Bissière, Zadkine etc.
Braque died in 1963. In is orbituary delivered at The Louvre in September of that year, Malraux stated : "There is a part of France's honour called Braque, because a country's honour is also made of what it gives to the world." |
