NARRATOR:
Georges Braque was a virtuoso at manipulating decorative motifs into a harmonious composition. He interwove the elements of this painting into a tapestry-like series of overlapping shapes, creating an intimate shallow space. And he mixed sand into some of his pigments, adding to the textural quality of the whole surface.
Braque used Cubist devices to transform a traditional subject, the artist and model in the studio, into something new. For example, he overlapped planes on the human form. Part light, part dark, one figure becomes two—or maybe substance and shadow. Braque wrote in his notebooks:
BRAQUE (ACTOR):
“Force and resistance are one and the same thing. In the present, there is no opposition between things; all things form pairs.”
NARRATOR:
Most of the painter’s figure, and his palette, are in dark silhouette, while we see most of the model’s sensuous flesh-tone body from the front. Braque seems to suggest there are two sides to art, which work together in harmony. While his model reveals her body openly, Braque paints her conceptually, with his “inner” self.
Braque and Picasso invented Cubism in 1909. The multiple views and overlapping planes of earlier Cubism linger in this painting of 1939. Braque’s imagery—like Picasso’s—had become more figurative, but not more literal. Braque wrote:
BRAQUE (ACTOR):
“Every condition is always complementary to the condition that preceded it.”
Artist and Model
1939
Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963)
On View
In the late 1930s, Braque’s focus turned from still life to interior scenes, culminating in a series of ambitious compositions representing artists at work in their studios. Here a nude model, her body sliced in two by shadow, poses for a painter silhouetted against the curtain. He smokes a cigarette and examines his handiwork—a picture within the picture. Unlike his contemporaries Picasso and Matisse, Braque abandoned study after the live model early in his career. This studio tableau is, therefore, an imaginary scene unrelated to its author’s contemporary practice. The goateed painter depicted bears no physical resemblance to Braque.
Details
- Artist Name: Georges Braque (French, 1882-1963)
- Title: Artist and Model
- Date: 1939
- Medium: Oil and sand on canvas
- Dimensions: 51-1/8 x 70-7/8 in. (129.9 x 180 cm)
- Credit Line: Norton Simon Art Foundation
- Accession Number: M.1976.05.P
- Copyright: © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris Reproduction, including downloading of ARS works is prohibited by copyright laws and international conventions without the express written permission of Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Object Information
The artist, commissioned in 1937 by;
Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., received 1939, sold 6 February 1976 to;
[M. Knoedler and Co., Inc., New York, stock no. A 10200, sold 6 April 1976 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Walter P. Chrysler, Jr., received 1939, sold 6 February 1976 to;
[M. Knoedler and Co., Inc., New York, stock no. A 10200, sold 6 April 1976 to];
Norton Simon Art Foundation.
Art in Our Time
- Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), 1939-05-11 to 1939-10
Georges Braque: Retrospective Exhibition
- Arts Club of Chicago, 1939-11-07 to 1939-11-27
- Washington D.C., Phillips Memorial Gallery, 1939-12-06 to 1940-01-06
- San Francisco Museum of Art, 1940-02-05 to 1940-03-06
Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
- Richmond, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1941-01-16 to 1941-03-04
- Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1941-03-29 to 1941-05-11
Paintings from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
- Portland Art Museum, 1956-03-02 to 1956-04-15
- Seattle Art Museum, 1956-04-27 to 1956-05-27
- California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1956-06-12 to 1956-07-11
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1956-07-26 to 1956-08-26
- Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1956-09-08 to 1956-10-07
- City Art Museum of St. Louis, 1956-10-19 to 1956-11-18
- Kansas City, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, 1956-11-30 to 1957-01-02
- Detroit Institute of Arts, 1957-01-18 to 1957-02-17
- Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1957-03-07 to 1957-04-14
The Controversial Century, 1850-1950: Paintings from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.
- Chrysler Museum, 1962-06-15 to 1962-09-02
- National Gallery of Canada, 1962-09-27 to 1962-11-04
Georges Braque
- Munich, Haus der Kunst, 1963-10-18 to 1963-12-15
- Frankfurter, Alfred M., Art News, p. 26
- Laufer, Fritz, Braque, pl. 28
- Richardson, John, The Burlington Magazine, p. 164
- Cassou, Jean, Georges Braque, pl. 29
- Leymarie, Jean, Braque, p. 89
- Fauchereau, Serge, Braque, no. 92
- Bowness, Sophie, The Burlington Magazine, fig. 15 p. 214
- Steadman, David W., The Connoisseur, p. 230
- Doris, Brian, Art News, p. 8
- Frankfurter, Alfred M., Art News, p. 10
- Frankfurter, Alfred M., Art News, p. 17
- Kootz, Samuel M., New Frontiers in American Painting, 1943, pl. 8
- Gieure, Maurice, G. Braque, 1956, pl. 92 p. 118
- Mangin, N. S., Catalogue de l'Oeuvre de Georges Braque: Peintures, 1936-1941, 1961, no. 52
- Valsecchi, M; and M. Carra, L'Opera completa di Braque dalla compisizione cubista al recupero dell'oggetto 1908-1929, 1971, no. 442 p. 104
- Chastel, Andre, Fables, Forms, Figures, 1978, fig. 268 p. 97
- Fumet, Stanislas, Braque, 1987, pl. 37
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 194
- Leymarie, Jean, Braque: les ateliers, 1995, pls. 42, 43 pp. cover, 100
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