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Georges Braque

French

1882, Argenteuil, France
1963, Paris, France

Biography

Trained as a house painter like his father and grandfather, Georges Braque moved to Paris in 1900 to pursue a fine art career. Seven years later he met Pablo Picasso, and by 1908 the two artists were working in concert to develop the revolutionary style of Cubism. Braque is overshadowed by his famous friend, but their impersonal painting style of the Cubist period makes their work often indistinguishable.

Braque invented papier collé, or pasted paper, in 1912. This merging of painting or drawing with collaged real-world elements marked a radical break with prior art, which relied exclusively on illusionistic rendering. The technique was immediately taken up by Picasso and had an enormous impact on subsequent generations of artists.

Braque and Picasso's working relationship ended when Braque enlisted in the army in 1914. Wounded in World War I, he moved to the French coast, where he continued to explore representational structure in still lifes and figure studies.

Works in the Collection

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