Juan Gris 1887-1927 | Spanish Cubist synthetic painter

Juan Gris, nome d'arte di José Victoriano González è stato un pittore spagnolo. Tra il 1902-1904 studiò disegno industriale a Madrid, collaborando anche in alcuni quotidiani locali come disegnatore di vignette umoristiche; questa passione per la satira illustrata lo accompagnerà per tutta la vita, anche dopo essere diventato un pittore famoso. Nel 1904-1905 studiò pittura con l'artista accademico José Maria Carbonero.
Nel 1906 si trasferì a Parigi, entrando in contatto con gli artisti più importanti del tempo, tra cui Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Fernand Léger ed Amedeo Modigliani. Fu proprio a Parigi che conobbe il suo connazionale Pablo Picasso, di cui divenne amico e di cui seguì l'esempio: già le opere del 1910 mostrano un chiaro interesse per il cubismo, che si rafforza nei lavori degli anni seguenti, fino ad arrivare ad uno stile cubista analitico nel 1912. Il suo ritratto di Picasso del 1912 è una delle prime significative opere cubiste effettuata da un pittore che non fosse Pablo Picasso o Georges Braque.
Il periodo della sua maturazione definitiva avvenne tra il 1914-1918: fu in questi anni che Gris si allontanò dal cubismo analitico per arrivare al cubismo sintetico, diventandone uno degli interpreti più interessanti. A differenza dei lavori dello stesso periodo di Picasso e di Braque, il cubismo di Gris è animato da spirito scientifico e razionale, che lo porta ad un marcato distacco e ad un certo intellettualismo classicheggiante. Gris, rifiutando il monocromatismo, dispone sulla tela combinazioni di colori armoniosi e luminosi: in queste zone di colore puro e intenso, l'interesse si sposta progressivamente dal soggetto alla struttura dell'immagine, analizzata e sintetizzata secondo modelli geometrici e matematici. In questo molti critici hanno visto la forte influenza che Matisse ebbe su di lui. La sua ricerca cubista di un nuovo modo di definire la realtà attraverso modelli astratti, portò Gris ad un continuo studio teorico, espresso in numerosi scritti ed interventi a conferenze. Questa ricerca può essere rintracciata anche nelle scenografie e nei costumi per i Balletti russi, per i quali cominciò a lavorare all'inizio degli anni venti. In quegli stessi anni si tennero le sue mostre più importanti, a Parigi, a Berlino ed a Düsseldorf. Gris morì a Boulogne-sur-Seine l'11 maggio 1927, a soli quarant’anni.

Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 | Nude Paintings

Pablo Picasso was born on October 25, 1881, in Málaga, Spain. The son of an academic painter, José Ruiz Blasco, he began to draw at an early age. In 1895 the family moved to Barcelona, and Picasso studied there at La Lonja, the academy of fine arts. His visit to Horta de Ebro from 1898-1899 and his association with the group at the café Els Quatre Gats in about 1899 were crucial to his early artistic development. Picasso’s first exhibition took place in Barcelona in 1900, and that fall he went to Paris for the first of several stays during the early years of the century. Picasso settled in Paris in April 1904, and his circle of friends soon included Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Gertrude and Leo Stein, as well as two dealers, Ambroise Vollard and Berthe Weill.
His style developed from the Blue Period 1901-04 to the Rose Period 1905 to the pivotal work Les Demoiselles d’Avignon (1907), and the subsequent evolution of Cubism from an Analytic phase (ca. 1908–11) to its Synthetic phase (beginning in 1912-13). Picasso’s collaboration on ballet and theatrical productions began in 1916. Soon thereafter, his work was characterized by neoclassicism and a renewed interest in drawing and figural representation. In the 1920s the artist and his wife, Olga (whom he had married in 1918), continued to live in Paris, to travel frequently, and to spend their summers at the beach. From 1925 to the 1930s Picasso was involved to a certain degree with the Surrealists, and from the fall of 1931 he was especially interested in making sculpture. In 1932, with large exhibitions at the Galeries Georges Petit, Paris, and the Kunsthaus Zürich, and the publication of the first volume of Christian Zervos’s catalogue raisonné, Picasso’s fame increased markedly.

Man Ray 1890-1976 | Surrealist/Cubist painter, sculturist and photographer

Emmanuel Rudnitzky, pseudonimo Man Ray, è stato un pittore, fotografo e regista statunitense, esponente del Dadaismo. Nasce a Filadelfia nel 1890, ma è a New York che cresce e completa gli studi: termina la scuola superiore ma rifiuta una borsa di studio in architettura per dedicarsi all’arte. A New York lavora nel 1908 come disegnatore e grafico. Nel 1912 inizia a firmare le sue opere con lo pseudonimo Man Ray che significa uomo raggio. Acquista la sua prima macchina fotografica nel 1914, per fotografare le sue opere d’arte. Nel 1915 il collezionista Walter Arensberg lo presenta a Marcel Duchamp, di cui diverrà grande amico. Nel 1919 dipinge le sue prime aerografie, immagini prodotte con un’aeropenna, uno strumento di ritocco di uso comune per un grafico disegnatore. A New York, con Marcel Duchamp formò il ramo americano del movimento Dada che era iniziato in Europa come un rifiuto radicale dell'arte tradizionale. Dopo alcuni tentativi senza successo e soprattutto dopo la pubblicazione di un unico numero di New York Dada nel 1920, Man Ray affermò che "il Dada non può vivere a New York". Nel 1920 Marcel Duchamp torna a Parigi. Man Ray, che in precedenza aveva rinunciato a trasferirsi in Francia a causa della grande guerra, lo segue. A Parigi Duchamp gli presenta gli artisti più influenti di Francia, fra cui anche André Breton Il successo Parigino di Man Ray è dovuto alla sua abilità come fotografo, soprattutto di ritrattista. Il suo studio fotografico è frequentato dalla Parigi bene, alla ricerca di un ritratto diverso dall’usuale.

Marcel Duchamp 1887-1968 | Cubist, Dadaist, Fauvist and Surrealist painter

Marcel Duchamp the painter and mixed media artist, was associated with Cubism, Dadaism, Fauvism and Surrealism, though he avoided any alliances. Duchamp’s work is characterized by its humor, the variety and unconventionality of its media, and its incessant probing of the boundaries of art. His legacy includes the insight that art can be about ideas instead of worldly things, a revolutionary notion that would resonate with later generations of artists.
Marcel Duchamp was a french artist whose work is most often associated with the Dadaist and Surrealist movements. Considered by some to be one of the most important artists of the 20th century, Duchamp's output influenced the development of post-World War I Western art. He advised modern art collectors, such as Peggy Guggenheim and other prominent figures, thereby helping to shape the tastes of Western art during this period.
Duchamp challenged conventional thought about artistic processes and art marketing, not so much by writing, but through subversive actions such as dubbing a urinal art and naming it Fountain. He produced relatively few artworks, while moving quickly through the avant-garde circles of his time. The creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.

Pablo Picasso 1881-1973 | The Cubist Portraits

The total number of artworks he produced has been estimated at 50.000, comprising 1.885 paintings, 1.228 sculptures, 2.880 ceramics, roughly 12.000 drawings, many thousands of prints, and numerous tapestries and rugs. At the time of his death many of his paintings were in his possession, as he had kept off the art market what he did not need to sell. In addition, Picasso had a considerable collection of the work of other famous artists, some his contemporaries, such as Henri Matisse, with whom he had exchanged works. Since Pablo Picasso left no will, his death duties to the French state were paid in the form of his works and others from his collection. These works form the core of the immense and representative collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris. In 2003, relatives of Picasso inaugurated a museum dedicated to him in his birthplace, Málaga, Spain, the Museo Picasso Málaga.

Pablo Ruiz y Picasso was exceptionally prolific throughout his long lifetime. One of the greatest and most influential artists of the 20th century, he is widely known for co-founding the Cubist movement, the invention of constructed sculpture, the co-invention of collage, and for the wide variety of styles that he helped develop and explore. Among his most famous works are the proto-Cubist Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 1907, and Guernica 1937, a portrayal of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War. Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Marcel Duchamp are commonly regarded as the three artists who most defined the revolutionary developments in the plastic arts in the opening decades of the 20th century, responsible for significant developments in painting, sculpture, printmaking and ceramics. His revolutionary artistic accomplishments brought him universal renown and immense fortune, making him one of the best-known figures in 20th century art.

Max Weber 1881-1961 | American Cubist painter

Max Weber was a jewish-american painter who worked in the style of cubism before migrating to Jewish themes towards the end of his life. Born in a polish city of Białystok, then part of Russian Empire, he immigrated to America with his parents at the age of 10. He studied art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn under Arthur Wesley Dow. In 1905 he had saved enough money to travel to Paris and study, acquainting himself with the work of such modernist artists as Henri Rousseau, Matisse, Pablo Picasso and other members of the so-called School of Paris. In 1909 he returned to New York and helped to introduce cubism to America. He is considered one of the most significant American cubists. In 1930 the Museum of Modern Art held a retrospective of his work, the first solo exhibition at that museum of an american artist.

Georgia O'Keeffe 1887-1986 | The Precisionist Movement, 1920*

For several decades Georgia O'Keeffe was a major figure in American art who, remarkably, maintained her independence from shifting artistic trends.
She painted prolifically, and almost exclusively, the flowers, animal bones, and landscapes around her studios in Lake George, New York and New Mexico, and these subjects became her signature images.
She remained true to her own unique artistic vision and created a highly individual style of painting, which synthesized the formal language of modern European abstraction and the subjects of traditional American pictorialism.

Paul Klee 1879-1940 | Swiss expressionist painter

Klee has been variously associated with expressionism, cubism, futurism, surrealism, and abstraction, but his pictures are difficult to classify. He generally worked in isolation from his peers, and interpreted new art trends in his own way. He was inventive in his methods and technique. Klee worked in many different media-oil paint, watercolor, ink, pastel, etching, and others. He often combined them into one work. He used canvas, burlap, muslin, linen, gauze, cardboard, metal foils, fabric, wallpaper, and newsprint. Klee employed spray paint, knife application, stamping, glazing, and impasto, and mixed media such as oil with watercolor, water color with pen and India ink, and oil with tempera. He was a natural draftsman, and through long experimentation developed a mastery of color and tonality. Many of his works combine these skills. He uses a great variety of color palettes from nearly monochromatic to highly polychromatic. His works often have a fragile child-like quality to them and are usually on a small scale. He often used geometric forms as well as letters, numbers, and arrows, and combined them with figures of animals and people. Some works were completely abstract. Many of his works and their titles reflect his dry humor and varying moods; some express political convictions. They frequently allude to poetry, music and dreams and sometimes include words or musical notation. The later works are distinguished by spidery hieroglyph-like symbols.

Tadeusz Makowski 1882-1932 | Post-Impressionist and Cubist painter

Tadeusz Makowski was a prominent polish painter active in France for most of his life. He was born in Oświęcim. Makowski attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Kraków. He studied under Jan Stanisławski and Józef Mehoffer. In 1909, he departed for Paris. Makowski started off as a landscape painter but then shifted towards Post-Impressionism and Cubism. However, he is arguably most famous for his rural landscape paintings. He met Pablo Picasso,who was his good friend.