Search Results

Image 1 of 1

Georges Braque, artist
French, 1882 - 1963
L'Oiseau blanc, 1961
color lithograph
36.3 x 28.9 cm (image); 61.6 x 47.6 cm (sheet)
Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts purchase 1964.142.54

Zoom this image

Artist Biography: Painter, sculptor, printmaker, illustrator. Braque spent his youth at Le Havre where he became an apprentice house painter and attended night classes in drawing; he then moved to Paris. His early paintings (1907-07) were in the Fauve style but he soon came under the influence of CÈzanne. This led to a close friendship with Picasso and subsequently to the development of Cubism. The paintings of the two artists for the next years (1910-14) were often quite similar. ~~After serving in World War I, Braque returned to a less austere kind of Cubism. Toward 1920 the lingering geometric traits of Braque's Cubism began to be softened by elaborations of brushwork and looser drawing. Though he ocassionally did figure paintings, especially of ancient Greek subjects, and a few small landscapes of the Norman Coast, his best work was in still-life, particularly his paintings of the 1920s and 1930s.~~During World War II his health suffered but he managed to paint many large canvases, somewhat looser in execution than his previous work. Braque also made prints, color lithographs, plaster reliefs, a few small sculptures and jewelry. In the 1950s he worked with the theme of birds in flight. After World War II his paintings became more colorful and impressionistic.