Georges Braque and Cahiers d’Art

Georges Braque was born on 13 May 1882 in Argenteuil. Throughout his life and career, he maintained a close collaboration with Cahiers d’Art. In 1933, Cahiers d’Art published Georges Braque, œuvres de 1906 à 1931, a monograph by Christian Zervos. Braque appeared in more than thirty issues of the Cahiers d’Art Revue, from its inaugural year in 1926 through to 1957. The 1956–57 issue featured L’Oiseau de Braque by René de Solier, an essay exploring the artist’s recurring bird motif.

A special issue of the Revue from 1933 was dedicated entirely to Braque, with texts by Christian Zervos, Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, Bissière, Blaise Cendrars, André Lhote, Ardengo Soffici, Jean Cassou, André Breton, Harold Stanley Ede, and Carl Einstein. In this issue, Ede wrote:

“Zervos says somewhere, ‘Braque est par excellence l’observateur de l’ordre voulu.’”

The issue contained 164 illustrations, allowing readers to explore both early and recent works.

A second special issue was dedicated to Braque in 1947, including numerous reproductions of his works, with a colour illustration on the cover. On this occasion, an extract from his Cahier (1917–1947) was published. This notebook was originally edited by Maeght and reproduced in photolithography, printed by Mourlot Frères in October 1947.

Christian Zervos wrote extensively on Braque’s work. Two notable articles include Observations on Recent Paintings by Braque (Cahiers d’Art, no. 1, 1930) and Braque and the Development of Cubism (Cahiers d’Art, nos. 1–2, 1932). In 1947, René Char also wrote a remarkable article on Braque’s paintings, illustrated with seventeen works.

The many issues of the Revue featuring Braque trace the evolution of his practice—from Fauvism to Cubism—forming an almost comprehensive record of his artistic output across painting, collage, and drawing. These issues also include portraits of Braque by renowned photographers such as Man Ray, Mariette Lachaud, and Eli Lotar.

As one critic observed:

“He has become a great specialist in painting, and it has not been his aim so much to turn out picture after picture, but through years of patient research to find an absolute expression. All Braque’s work becomes one picture, an increasingly clear statement of the poetry by which he lives, and it is a mark of great singleness of purpose that he should have been able to live by the overshadowing resourcefulness of Picasso and yet retain this clearly disciplined continuity, wholly concerned with the formal integrity of the work—a devotion seen and felt in all that is best in French classicism.”

Georges Braque was a French artist born in Argenteuil in 1882 and who died in Paris in 1963, after an extraordinarily prolific career as a painter, engraver, and sculptor. He was first associated with Fauvism at the turn of the century before becoming one of the pioneers of Cubism alongside Picasso.

His first Parisian exhibition took place at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905, where his works were strongly influenced by Cézanne. Between 1907 and 1914, Braque and Picasso jointly developed the first Cubist experiments (the term Cubism having been coined by art critic Louis Vauxcelles).

Braque is also celebrated for his innovations in collage, his use of pasted paper (papiers collés), and his exploration of the relationship between language and image. Through the introduction of diverse materials and visual illusion, he continually questioned the function and nature of art itself.