Printer: Mourlot (1 of 1,000 Editions)
Dimensions: 71 x 49 cm
Condition: Very good
Frame: Oak floating
Description: This image of a bird was created to promote Braque’s 1959 exhibition at Galerie Maeght in Paris. The motif relates to a body of work developed after his 1955 visit to the Camargue, where birds became a recurring subject.
This example is an earlier state of the poster, printed before the final exhibition lettering was fully resolved. Such impressions were produced during the working stages at Atelier Mourlot, as artist and printer adjusted composition and text before the full edition was issued. At this stage, artists, including Braque, were typically closely involved, working directly with the printer to refine balance, line and placement.
Artist: Georges Braque was a French painter from Normandy best known for developing cubism with Pablo Picasso. From school, he followed his family’s trade as a house painter and decorator, taking art classes at night before moving to Paris to study at the Académie Humbert in Montmartre. Inspired by the impressionists, he focused on landscapes with increasing use of bold colour and shapes which resulted in his alliance with fauvism. This artistic movement, steered by Matisse, Maurice de Vlaminck, André Derain, Othon Friesz and Raoul Dufy broke new ground in art as it moved away from representational form. Braque had by then met Picasso and between 1906 and the outbreak of the First World War, they began to further deconstruct artistic norms to develop cubism. Braque sustained a severe head injury during the war and was slow to return to art but it was said his work was bolder, freer, and his style continued to evolve as he embraced collage, sculpting, lithography, jewellery design and stage sets. He died in 1963.
