Georges Braque. La nascita del Cubismo, capolavori grafici

DEODATO ARTE
Via Santa Marta, 6 - Milan

GEORGES BRAQUE
La nascita del Cubismo, capolavori grafici/
The birth of Cubism, graphic masterpieces

10 October – 20 November 2018
opening on Tuesday, 9 October at 6:30pm

press release, 03.10.2018

The great master Georges Braque is on display at the Deodato Arte gallery in Milan, in Via Santa Marta, 6 from 10 October to 20 November with the exhibition titled “Georges Braque. La nascita del Cubismo, capolavori grafici/Georges Braque. The birth of Cubism, graphic masterpieces”.

Braque, the founder of the cubist movement together with Pablo Picasso, juxtaposes paintings and sculptures with graphic works throughout his artistic career: incisions, lithographs, etchings, aquatints, xylographs and illustrations that reproduce phase by phase the artist’s trends, styles and languages through time. Consequently, him being at the beginning influenced by Les Fauves (the wild beasts), his art evolves towards the radical simplification of form and space into a completely synthesised reality, into the de-structuration of image and perspective, which are the typical ways of expression of Cubism. A constant attention is turned to the geometrical element, to the relationships among colours and hues.

Braque’s graphic production began in the Twentieth Century, in 1907 and 1908, with typically cubist incisions that are mainly dedicated to objects from everyday life, which became more and more visually striking over the years, thanks to the chromatic component, especially in the works made between the end of the 1940s and the 1960s.
The more than 30 important original graphic works on display allow the viewer to admire the power of the artistic evolution and the creative peculiarity of the founder of Cubism.
The masterpieces on display are of great interest and strongly characteristic for synthesis, poetry and their link with reality as one can see in the lithographs Théière grise/Grey teapot (1947), in the precious incisions Nature morte aux huitres/Oysters still life (1950), and Nature morte aux citrons/Lemons still life (1960). They are all works where still life is recurring, a theme very dear to the French artist. It is indeed in the immediate post-WWII period that Braque approaches a more realistic interpretation of nature, imbued with aspects linked to cubism, and one can see how birds, flowers and landscapes become frequent themes, such as in the aquatint Oiseau et son ombre III/Bird and its shadow III (1961).
In the exhibition the viewer can also admire black and white works, for instance the lithographs Les pommes/The apples (1953) and Le ciel gris II/The grey sky II (1959) that leave room for original pure forms, where sign acquires more relevance.

The exhibition underlines the long-lasting friendship between Braque and Pablo Picasso, by the display of some original graphic works from the cubist period made by the Spanish master. After the coming of Cubism, a term that was used for the first time by Louis Vauxcelles in 1908 in an article on the French periodical “Gil Blas”, the two artists begin together a long journey of research, collaboration, debate and dialogue.