Juan Gris

A Spanish artist and sculptor, art theorist, one of the founders of Cubism, stands alongside P. Picasso and G. Braque.

Jose Victoriano Carmelo Carlos (the name that he received when he was born) was the thirteenth child in the family of wealthy merchant Gregorio Gonzalez. The boy received his first art education in Madrid at the school of fine and applied art. From 1904, Gris took private painting lessons from Jose Moreno Carbonero, who was a highly educated but very traditional painter. The artist earned his first money, illustrating humorous essays in magazines.

Juan Gris is an outstanding figure of European art of the first half of the twentieth century, with his highly intelligent painting that laid the foundation for Surrealism, Dadaism and pop art. Despite a rather short life, the artist managed to create a new turn in the development of Cubism, becoming the founder of its synthetic direction and a pioneer in the collage technique. A member of the Parisian group of artists known as the “Ecole de Paris”, Gris participated in the exhibitions of the Salon of Independent in Paris, the Sturm Gallery in Berlin, the Dalmau Gallery in Barcelona and many others. In addition to paintings, the artist created scenery and costumes for the ballet productions of Sergei Diaghilev, as well as illustrated the books of his friends: G. Apollinaire, P. Reverdy and V.Udobro. Works of the artist impacted not only the development of painting, but also sculpture, architecture and design in Europe and the United States of America.

Key ideas:

– Starting his career as an illustrator and cartoonist, Juan Gris chose his creative path without hesitation. Once acquainted with the works of Cubists Picasso and Braque, he became a loyal follower of this art movement, later changed the vector of its development and created a new concept in the visual arts – “synthetic cubism.”

– Depicting objects from different angles, dividing and reconnecting their parts, the artist, unlike his fellow Cubists, always tried to create a whole image, where different elements and materials form a single harmonious composition. Gris depicted objects less distorted, simple and recognizable at first sight, making abstract art understandable even for the uninitiated spectator.

– Most of the artist’s paintings are still lifes. Working with fixed objects, the artist could freely experiment with the form and perspective: separate and join, cut and paste, add various textures and even clippings from newspapers.

– Juan Gris was an unsurpassed master of collage, one of the first in this movement. He put entire pages of newspapers and magazines directly on the canvas, creating a composition diverse not only in color and form, but also in texture. He also created several outstanding portraits, the most famous of them became the portrait of Pablo Picasso, painted in 1912.

– The artist paid much attention to color in his works. His colors are darker and more saturated than those of Picasso and Braque, bear a certain logical meaning and emphasize the overall dynamics of the canvas.

– Gris characterizes his painting as «a variant of a planar, colored architecture», aimed at the active interaction between the artist and the outside world. Many works by Juan Gris, especially the late still lifes, are recognized by critics as the most vivid masterpieces of Cubism, its conditional “top.”