Georges Braque was born on May 13 in 1882 in Argenteuil. He collaborated with Cahiers d’Art throughout his life and career. In 1933, Cahiers d’Art published ‘Georges Braque, œuvres de 1906 à 1931’, a monograph by Christian Zervos. Braque also features in more than 30 issues of the Cahiers d’Art Revue, from 1926, its first year, to 1957. The 1956-57 issue features ‘L’Oiseau de Braque’ by Rene de Solier, an essay exploring the artist’s use of the bird motif.

A special issue of the Revue from 1933 is dedicated entirely to Braque, with texts by Christian Zervos, Guillaume Apollinaire, André Salmon, Bissière, Blase Candrars, André Lhote, Ardegno Soffici, Jean Cassou, André Breton, Harold Stanley Ede, and Von Karl Einstein. In this issue, Ede writes:  “Zervos says somewhere “Braque est par excellence l’observateur de l’ordre voulu”. This issue is made up of 164 illustrations which allow visitors to discover some of his old and recent works.

A second unique number was dedicated to him in 1947, including many reproductions of his works, and the cover of which is illustrated in color. On this occasion, an extract from his notebook (1917 – 1947) was published. This notebook was originally edited by Maeght, and reproduced in photolithography as well as printed by Mourlot Frères in October 1947. 

Christian Zervos has written several times on his work, the following two articles can be cited in particular: “Observations on recent paintings by Braque” (n ° 1, 1930) or “Braque and the development of cubism” (n ° 1- 2, 1932). René Char will also write about his paintings in 1947, a very nice article illustrated with 17 works. The many issues of the Revue featuring Braque trace the developments in his practice, from Cubism through Fauvism, forming an almost comprehensive record of his artistic output across painting, collage, and drawing. These issues also feature portraits of Braque by great photographers, including Man Ray, Mariette Lachaud, and Eli Lotar.

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 to have retained 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.”

Biography

Georges Braque is a French artist born in Argenteuil in 1882 and died in Paris in 1963, after a very prolific career, having been both painter, engraver and sculptor. Georges Braque 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 of the Independants in 1905, where his works were strongly inspired by Cézanne. Between 1907 and 1914, Braque and Picasso jointly carried out the first cubist experiments (the term cubism comes from the art critic Louis Vauxcelles). Braque is also recognized for his technique of collage, glued papers, and the interweaving of language and image, the introduction of various materials, ways to provoke illusion and to question the functions of art.