- Juan Gris
José Victoriano González-Pérez (
March 23 ,1887 –May 11 ,1927 ), better known as Juan Gris, was a Spanish painter andsculptor who lived and worked inFrance most of his life. His works are closely connected to the emergence of an innovative artistic genre—Cubism .Biography
Born in
Madrid , Gris studied mechanical drawing at the Escuela de Artes y Manufacturas in Madrid from 1902 to 1904, during which time he contributed drawings to local periodicals. From 1904 to 1905 he studied painting with the academic artist José Maria Carbonero.In 1906 he moved to
Paris and became friends withHenri Matisse ,Georges Braque ,Fernand Léger , and in 1915 he was painted by his friend,Amedeo Modigliani . In Paris, Gris followed the lead of another friend and fellow countryman,Pablo Picasso . His portrait of Picasso in 1912 is a significant early Cubist painting done by a painter other than Picasso orGeorges Braque . (Although he regarded Picasso as a teacher,Gertrude Stein acknowledged that Gris "was the one person that Picasso would have willingly wiped off the map.")Although he submitted darkly humorous illustrations to journals such as "
Le Rire ", "L'assiette au beurre", "Le Charivari ", and "Le Cri de Paris", Gris began to paint seriously in 1910. By 1912 he had developed a personal Cubist style.At first Gris painted in the analytic style of Cubism, but after 1913 he began his conversion to synthetic Cubism, of which he became a steadfast interpreter, with extensive use of
papier collé . Unlike Picasso and Braque, whose Cubist works weremonochromatic , Gris painted with bright harmonious colors in daring, novel combinations in the manner of his friendMatisse .In 1924, he first designed
ballet sets and costumes forSergei Diaghilev and the famousBallets Russes .Gris articulated most of his aesthetic theories during 1924 and 1925. He delivered his definitive lecture, "Des possibilités de la peinture", at the Sorbonne in 1924. Major Gris exhibitions took place at the Galerie Simon in Paris and the Galerie Flechtheim in
Berlin in 1923, and at the Galerie Flechtheim inDüsseldorf in 1925.He died in
Boulogne-sur-Seine (Paris ) in the spring of 1927 at the age of forty, leaving a wife, Josette, and a son, Georges.elected works
External links
* [http://www.ricci-art.com/en/Juan-Gris.htm Paintings by Juan Gris]
* [http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/gris_juan.html Artcyclopedia] - Links to Gris' works
* [http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/by_artist.php?id=364 The Athenaeum] - Extensive list and images of Gris' works
* [http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/gris/ Web Museum] - Biography and images of Gris' works
* [http://www.lerire.com OCR'd issues of Le Rire]
* [http://www.artfacts.net/index.php/pageType/artistInfo/artist/5680/lang/1 Juan Gris in Artfacts.Net ] See actual exhibitions and related galleries and museums for Juan Gris
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