PICASSO & BRAQUE
Pablo Picasso was Spanish, but worked in France initially in 1900 and permanently within a few years. As painter, sculptor, print maker, ceramicist, stage designer, poet and playwright Picasso created ceaselessly throughout his career. Born: October 25, 1881: Malaga, Spain, Died: April 8, 1973 Mougins, France.
Georges Braque was a major 20th-century French painter devoted to non-objective painting working along side Picasso at the birth of Cubism. Importantly for Gary Braque's work with collages and the expressive fluid nature of paint were stimulating to Gary's own efforts. Braque's painting career was quietly pursued throughout his long life and was much respected by Picasso at the end of his life. Born: May 13, 1882 Agenteuil, France; Died: August 31, 1963, Paris, France.
![ PICASSO / BRAQUE 2016© with passages from "HARLEQUIN 1915" MODERN MUSEUM OF ART, NY, ny; AND GEORGES BRAQUE "Houses at L’Estaque" 1908 Paint, colored pencils, oil pastels ON PAPER; 92.5” x 47” [234 cm x 119.38 cm]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/572e056b2eeb81cdd0569ce4/1496503570802-QZBUAALTZY4KRL14J52Q/PICASSO+BRAQUE)
PICASSO / BRAQUE 2016© with passages from "HARLEQUIN 1915" MODERN MUSEUM OF ART, NY, ny; AND GEORGES BRAQUE "Houses at L’Estaque" 1908 Paint, colored pencils, oil pastels ON PAPER; 92.5” x 47” [234 cm x 119.38 cm]
Both Picasso and Braque had a significant influence on Gary because of their commitment to the abstract movement. Gary was under 10 years old when he discovered a book on Picasso's posters. Also Gary discovered In a magazine featuring Picasso's 1910 cubist painting of Ambroise Vollard. Excited by the reproductions, Gary daily explored this new exciting world of Picasso he had never before seen. Awareness and appreciation of Braque's and Picasso’s cubist work soon followed. Equally important, Picasso's breadth of diversity gave Gary a freedom to explore. Picasso’s forms of expression are reflective of Gary’s interest in ceramics as an art and as functional whether used as a wall piece or a vase.
Living near his monumental 36 foot high “Bust of Sylvette" a Picasso sculpture, Gary is frequently exposed and moved by Picasso. His ability to convey through a line drawing on a small cardboard sculpture works was scaled up to monumental scale. In combination with the three I.M.Pei-designed buildings surrounding this sculpture, one experiences the feeling of a piazza — a treasure within New York’s urban grid.
PICASSO "WOMAN BEFORE A MIRROR" 1932 Museum of Modern Art, N.Y., NY
pICASSO "AMBROISE VOLLARD 1910 Pushkin Museum, Moscow, Russia
PICASSO "HARLEQUIN" 1915 Museum of Modern Art
GEORGES BRAQUE "HOUSES AT L'ESTAQUE" 1908Houses at L’Estaque Georges Braque, 1908, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Berne, Switzerland
picasso Sylvette 1954; Silver Towers, N.Y., N.Y.