Georges Braque

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Violin and Candlestick, Paris, spring 1910 (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art)

Georges Braque (May 13, 1882 – August 31, 1963) was a French painter and sculptor, and with Pablo Picasso one of the inventors of cubism.

Georges Braque was born in Argenteuil-sur-Seine, France. He grew up in Le Havre and trained to be a house painter and decorator like his father and grandfather, but he also studied painting in the evenings at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in le Havre from about 1897 to 1899.

He apprenticed in Paris under a decorator and was awarded his certificate in 1901. The following year he attended the Academie Hummer and painted there until 1904. It was here that he met Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia. There are many stories about Marie Laurencin bearing Braque's child, but many researchers say that these are probably lies.

His early work was impressionistic, however he was impressed by the bold style of work exhibited by the Fauves in 1905 and soon changed to a Fauvist style. They used brilliant colours and loose structures of forms to capture the most intense emotional response. The Fauves included, among others, Henri Matisse and Andre Derain. Braque worked most closely with the artists Raoul Dufy and Othon Friesz, who shared Braque's hometown of Le Havre, to develop a somewhat more subdued Fauvist style. In 1906, Braque traveled with Friesz to L'Estaque, Antwerp, and home to Le Havre to paint.

In 1907, Braque successfully exhibited works in the Fauve style in the Salon des Indépendants. The same year, Braque's style began a slow evolution as he came under the strong influence of Paul Cézanne, who died in 1906, and whose works were widely exhibited in Paris. Braque's paintings began to evidence his new interest in geometry and simultaneous perspective. Beginning in 1909, Braque worked closely with Pablo Picasso to develop the style known as Cubism. Georges Braque liked Cubism because he liked moving within the painting. In 1912, they began to experiment with collage and papier collé. Their collaboration continued until 1914 when Braque left Paris to fight in the First World War.

Braque was injured in the First World War, after which he moved away from the harsher abstraction of cubism, towards the hermetic and synthetic forms — the most abstract forms of cubism. During his recovery he made close relationships with Juan Gris, another famous cubist artist.

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