Printer: Mourlot (1 of 750 Editions) Edition of 750, with a further 75 proofs on Arches paper, including signed and numbered impressions before lettering.
Dimensions: 70 x 50 cm
Condition: Very good.
Frame: Framed in oak.
Description: Designed for an exhibition of prints and illustrated books in Geneva, this six-colour lithograph reflects Braque’s late preoccupation with the bird motif. After visiting the Camargue in 1955, he returned repeatedly to the subject, reducing it to a poised, essential form within a restrained palette.
Printed at Atelier Mourlot in Paris, the poster belongs to the golden age of artist-led lithography, when exhibition prints were conceived as original works.
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.
