Cubism

Cubism was one of the most significant art movements of the 20th century. It began in France about 1907, and flourished from 1910 through the 1920s. It was pioneered by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso.

Pablo Picasso's 1907 painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon was an early Cubist work. Georges Braque's 1908 Houses at L’Estaque (and related works) prompted the critic Louis Vauxcelles to refer to "bizarreries cubiques" (cubic oddities).

The first organized group exhibition by Cubists took place at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in the spring of 1911. It included works by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay and Henri Le Fauconnier, but no works by Picasso and Braque were exhibited.^[1]

According to one art historian, there were three phases of Cubism. There was "Early Cubism", (from 1906 to 1908) when the movement was initially developed by Picasso and Braque. In the second phase, "High Cubism", (from 1909 to 1914), Juan Gris emerged as an important exponent after 1911. Finally "Late Cubism" (from 1914 to 1921) was the last phase of Cubism as a radical avant-garde movement.^[2] Douglas Cooper's emphasis on the work of Braque, Picasso, Gris (from 1911) and Léger (to a lesser extent) was an intentional value judgement.^[1]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Green, Christopher 1987. Cubism and its enemies: modern movements and reaction in French art, 1916-1928. Yale University Press, New Haven and London. ISBN 0300034687
2. ↑ Douglas Cooper, "The Cubist Epoch", pp. 11–221, 232, Phaidon Press Limited 1970 in association with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art ISBN 0-87587-041-4