Georges Braque Biography

“Once an object has been incorporated in a picture it accepts a new destiny.” – Georges Braque


Oiseau Blanc, 1961 , Ceramic Plaque

Artist Georges Braque was born on May 13, 1882, in Argenteuil sur Seine, France. The son of a house decorator, Georges Braque received his first art lessons in painting from his father. In 1890 the Braque family moved to Le Havre, where Georges Braque would attend evening art classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts from about 1897 to 1899. At the age of 19, Georges Braque left for Paris to get a craftsman certificate.

From 1902 to 1904, Georges Braque studied art at the Academie Humbert in Paris, where Braque met artists Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia. By 1906, Georges Braque had evolved his art from the Impressionist style into the bolder Fauvist style. Georges Braque showed Fauvist works of art the following year in the Salon des Independants in Paris. Georges Braque had his first solo art show at Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler’s gallery in 1908.

In 1909, Georges Braque began to work very closely with artist and collegue Pablo Picasso, as the two artists’ styles were becoming very similar. Both Braque and Picasso’s art showed an increased interest in geometry and simultaneous perspective, and by 1911 Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso had developed the artistic style of Cubism. One of Picasso's many pet names for Georges Braque was 'Vilbour' or 'Wilbourg', a reference to Wilbur Wright. Pablo Picasso saw in their 1908-1914 creative art partnership something that was akin to the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, the pioneers of sustained powered flight. In 1912, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso started to incorporate collage elements into their art and to experiment with the papier colle (pasted paper) technique, in which Barque utilized a roll of wallpaper found in a local shop. Braque and Picasso’s productive collaboration continued until the outbreak of World War I in 1914.

Georges Braque served with honor in the French army during World War I and was seriously wounded in the head, leaving Braque temporarily blinded and unable to create art. Upon recovering in 1917, Georges Braque began a close friendship with cubist artist Juan Gris.



Theiere et Fruits, c. 1950 , Collotype



After the war Georges Braque became freer and less schematic in his art, moving away from the harsher abstraction of Cubism. Braque painted many still life subjects during this time, maintaining an emphasis on structure. In 1922 Georges Braque had an art exhibition at the Salon d’Automne in Paris that brought Braque great fame and recognition. During the mid-1920s, Georges Braque designed the art decor for two Sergei Diaghilev ballets. By the end of the decade, Georges Braque had returned to a more realistic interpretation of nature, although certain aspects of Cubism always remained present in Braque’s art.

 In 1931, Georges Braque created his first engraved plasters and began to portray mythological subjects. Georges Braque had his first important art retrospective in 1933 at the Kunsthalle Basel. In 1937 Braque won First Prize at the Carnegie International, in Pittsburgh.



Georges Braque at his studio with Mourlot and Master Printers, 1962



During World War II, Georges Braque remained in Paris. During this period Braque primarily painted still-lifes and interiors, and Braque’s art became more and more somber as the war continued. From the late 1940s Georges Braque created numerous lithographs, engravings, and sculptures where, Braque utilized recurring themes of birds, ateliers, landscapes, and seascapes. Georges Braque, along with Henri Matisse, is credited for introducing Pablo Picasso to Fernand Mourlot, and most of the lithographs, illustrated books, and original prints Braque created in the 1940s and '50s were produced at the Mourlot Lithography Studios. In 1948 Georges Braque was awarded the main prize for painting at the Venice Biennale, and in 1951 Braque was made a Commander of the Legion of Honour. A few years later, Braque employed his skills as a craftsman, when Braque designed stained-glass windows for the church of Varengeville and painted the ceiling for the Etruscan Gallery at The Louvre. In 1961 George Braque had the distinction of being the first living artist to have his art exhibited at The Louvre.



Louvre I , c. 1955, Lithograph



Louvre IV, c. 1955, Lithograph


During the last few years of Braque’s life, ill health prevented Braque from undertaking further large-scale commissions, but Baroque continued to paint, create lithographs, and design jewelry. Georges Braque died on August 31, 1963, in Paris with his wife, Marcelle, at his side.

Lithographic Vintage Posters

Henri Matisse "Madame de Pompadour" 1951

Vintage poster collecting became fashionable at the turn of the 19th Century. Vintage posters were a vibrant and expressive form of advertising meant to attract the throngs of everyday consumers in cities both large and small. These vintage posters had to be visually striking and immediately convey their message in order to entice the viewer. Vintage posters were typically placed at street (eye) level, and often these vintage posters were positioned in prominent areas such as gallery windows, railway stations, street kiosks, or on the sides of buildings where the vintage posters could be easily seen.

Pablo Picasso "Galerie Beyeler" 1967

As vintage poster collecting grew more popular, vintage posters were burglarized from billboards at an alarming rate, and it became increasingly difficult for advertisers to keep their vintage posters on the streets. As a solution to the problem, vintage poster lithography workshops increased production and began selling the vintage posters to the public.

Marc Chagall "Le Baie des Anges" 1962

These collectable vintage posters were created in lithography print workshops (also known as ateliers) that specialized in the print medium of Lithography. The Atelier Mourlot, founded in 1852, was a lithography print studio located in Paris that produced a number of vintage posters. Originally a printer of fine wallpaper, the Atelier Mourlot became involved in the printing of illustrated books as well as high quality vintage posters for the French National Museums and major foreign institutions. By 1937 the Mourlot lithography studio had established a reputation as the largest print workshop of vintage posters by master artists.

Joan Miro "Galerie Maeght" 1948

The Atelier Mourlot lithography studio was generationally operated by the sons of founder Francois Mourlot. The Atelier Mourlot took a modern artistic turn when Fernand Mourlot invited the master artists of the time into the Mourlot lithography studios to learn the technique of lithography. The Atelier Mourlot lithography studio played host to many major 20th century master artists including: Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Miro, Chagall, Leger, Dubuffet, Moore, Le Corbusier, Calder, Kelly, Rauschenberg, Matta, Bacon, Ernst, Lichtenstein, and many more.

 

Marc Chagall "The Magic Flute" 1967

Mourlot encouraged these master artists to work directly on the lithography stones or plates to create original vintage posters which would then be printed in small editions. The results of this artistic print collaboration between master artists and Mourlot were technically inventive, visually captivating and opened a unique realm of creative expression known as Fine Art lithography. Mourlot was proud of these vintage posters which bore the Mourlot family name and they became known worldwide for their originality, beauty and craftsmanship.

Original vintage posters by master artists of the 20th Century, have come to be recognized as a highly collectible form of art, whether for pleasure or for investment purposes. World-renowned museums exhibit vintage posters and many have permanent collections of vintage posters. Magnificent examples of such vintage poster collections can be found at the Louvre, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern, and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.

Le Corbusier "Tapisseries Recents" 1960

Henri Matisse Biography

Odalisque au Coffret Rouge,1952
Aquatint

“What I dream of is an art of balance, purity and serenity devoid of troubling or disturbing subject matter…like a comforting influence, a mental balm—something like a good armchair in which one rests from physical fatigue.”
                                                   – Henri Matisse

Henri Matisse was born in Le Cateau-Cambrésis in northern France. Matisse first began painting in 1889, when Matisse’s mother gave him art supplies during a period of convalescence following an attack of appendicitis. Henri Matisse discovered “a kind of paradise” in painting, and Matisse abandoned his legal career, to the deep disappointment of Matisse’s father.

In 1891 Henri Matisse moved to Paris to study art at the Acadamie Julian. It was here that Henri Matisse achieved proficiency in academic painting in the classic reserved style. In 1897, Henri Matisse was exposed to the artwork of Van Gogh and the palette of the Impressionists, which deeply changed Matisse’s understanding of color. Henri Matisse was greatly influenced by Neo-Impressionist artists: Eduard Manet, Auguste Rodin, Cezanne, Paul Signac and Gauguin.

Woman with a Hat, 1905
Oil on canvas

Henri Matisse had his first solo show at art dealer Ambroise Vollard’s gallery in 1904. At the 1905 Salon d’Automne, Henri Matisse and artists Andre Derain, Maurice de Vlaminck and Albert Marquet, exhibited together. Henri Matisse and his colleagues’ intensely vibrant, spontaneously painted works were jeered by the public, who deemed them exceedingly primitive, brutal and violent. The group of artists was dubbed “Les Fauves” (the wild beasts) by art critic Louis Vauxcelles. Other Fauvist included: Georges Braque, Raoul Dufy, and Maurice de Vlaminck. Matisse’s painting from the exhibition “Woman with a Hat” was bought by Gertrude Stein, who would become an important collector and supporter of Matisse.

Le Buffet, 1929
Pochoir

Gertrude Stein and her brother Leo were avid patrons of Matisse’s work and through Stein’s salons Henri Matisse was introduced to other important collectors as well as artists. In 1907 Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse met at one of Stein’s salons. This was the beginning of a creative association and rivalry between Picasso and Matisse. “No one has ever looked at Matisse's painting more carefully than I; and no one has looked at mine more carefully than Matisse.” stated Pablo Picasso.

After World War I, Henri Matisse had gained a high reputation and Matisse was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 1925. Henri Matisse was an internationally recognized artist by 1930. During the 1940s Henri Matisse also worked in the Mourlot Studio in Paris, creating black-and-white prints for several illustrated books and over one hundred original lithographs, woodcuts, linocuts, and etchings.

Decoupage, 1954
Lithograph

In 1941 Henri Matisse had two major operations for duodenal cancer which had a devastating effect on Matisse’s health and ability to paint. The surgeries left Matisse unable to stand upright in front of an easel, and Henri Matisse was confined to either a bed or a wheelchair. Undaunted by this immobility, Matisse would tape a piece of charcoal to a long stick and Matisse would draw on mounted paper or directly on the walls or ceilings. Henri Matisse discovered a new kind of artistic creativity with papiers découpés, abstract shapes cut from colored paper. “The paper cut out” Matisse said “allows me to draw in the color. It is a simplification for me. Instead of drawing the outline and putting the color inside it—the one modifying the other—I draw straight into the color”. These artworks rank as some of the most joyous artworks ever created by an artist at an advanced age and Henri Matisse continued creating paper cutout works until his death. In 1947 Henri Matisse published Jazz, a limited-edition illustrated book containing original prints (lithographs, etchings and woodcuts) of colorful, paper cut collages.

Odalisque Sur Fond Rouge, 1929
Pochoir

Henri Matisse died on November 3, 1954 in Nice as an innovative artist who explored color and form through his paintings, lithographs, etchings, linocuts, illustrated books, sculpture and stain glass windows. Pablo Picasso once said about Matisse: "All things considered, there is only Matisse".