Georges Braque (1882-1963)

"Painter of contained richness, of silent truths, of deep, secret knowledge[1] ".

 Georges Braque is one of the major artists of the twentieth century. In "rope" with Picasso, he invented cubism, one of the most important revolutions in art of this period. Braque came from a family of house painters and was destined to become a decorative painter. He grew up in Le Havre where he became friends with Raoul Dufy and Othon Friesz. He moved to Paris to a studio in Montmartre in 1904. At the 1905 Salon d'Automne, the discovery of works by Matisse and Derain, brought back from Collioure where they had spent the summer, made a strong impression on him. Fauvist painting, dynamic and full of enthusiasm, influenced his work during the following summer. Cézanne's work quickly nourished his thinking, especially since the painter from Aix-en-Provence, who died in October 1906, was in the limelight at the time: a retrospective exhibition paid tribute to him at the Salon d'Automne in 1907, as well as the Bernheim-Jeune gallery.

The discovery of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, June-July 1907 (New York, Museum of Modern Art) in Picasso's studio at the end of November and the beginning of December marked the beginning of a dialogue between the two artists through works of art - also nourished by works of Matisse, such as Nu bleu souvenir de Biskra 1907 (Baltimore, Museum of Art) and Derain - which would lead them to Cubism. Braque stayed several times in L'Estaque, following in the footsteps of Cézanne. The Salon d'Automne of 1908 refused the landscapes he had painted there during the summer. Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler presented them in his young gallery in the rue Vignon from November 9 to 28. It was the first public exhibition of Cubism. It brings together twenty-seven landscapes with pronounced volumes and no perspective, embodying what Braque referred to as a tactile, palpable space, in which the objects, the subject, give the feeling of being in the same space as the viewer.

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