José Victoriano González-Pérez (23 March 1887 – 11 May 1927), better known as Juan Gris (; ), was a Spanish painter born in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

who lived and worked in France for most of his active period. Closely connected to the innovative artistic genre

Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

, his works are among the movement's most distinctive.

Life

Gris was born in

and later studied engineering at the Madrid School of Arts and Sciences. There, from 1902 to 1904, he contributed drawings to local periodicals. From 1904 to 1905, he studied painting with the academic artist

José Moreno Carbonero José Moreno Carbonero (Spanish: o'se mo'reno karbo'nero 24 March 1858 – 15 April 1942) was a Spanish painter and decorator. A prominent member of the Málaga School of Painting, he is considered one of the last great history painters of ...

. It was in 1905 that José Victoriano González adopted the more distinctive name Juan Gris. In 1909, Lucie Belin (1891–1942)—Gris' wife—gave birth to Georges Gonzalez-Gris (1909–2003), the artist's only child. The three lived at the

Bateau-Lavoir The Bateau-Lavoir ("Washhouse Boat") is the nickname of a building in the Montmartre district of the 18th arrondissement of Paris that is famous in art history as the residence and meeting place for a group of outstanding early 20th-century artist ...

, 13 Rue Ravignan, Paris, from 1909 to 1911. In 1912 Gris met Charlotte Augusta Fernande Herpin (1894–1983), also known as Josette. Late 1913 or early 1914 they lived together at the Bateau-Lavoir until 1922. Josette Gris was Juan Gris' second companion and unofficial wife.

Career

Juan Gris El 1 de mayo en el Kursall, 1907

In 1906, after he sold all his possessions, he moved to Paris and became friends with the poets

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

Max Jacob Max Jacob (; 12 July 1876 – 5 March 1944) was a French poet, painter, writer, and critic. Life and career After spending his childhood in Quimper, Brittany, he enrolled in the Paris Colonial School, which he left in 1897 for an artistic ca ...

, and artists

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

Georges Braque Georges Braque ( , ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963) was a major 20th-century List of French artists, French painter, Collage, collagist, Drawing, draughtsman, printmaker and sculpture, sculptor. His most notable contributions were in his all ...

Fernand Léger Joseph Fernand Henri Léger (; February 4, 1881 – August 17, 1955) was a French painting, painter, sculpture, sculptor, and film director, filmmaker. In his early works he created a personal form of cubism (known as "tubism") which he gradually ...

and

Jean Metzinger Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger (; 24 June 1883 – 3 November 1956) was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1 ...

.''Handbook, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection'', University of California, 1983, p. 26, 83 He submitted darkly humorous illustrations to journals such as the anarchist satirical magazine '' L'Assiette au Beurre'', and also ''

Le Rire ''Le Rire'' (, "Laughter") was a successful French humor magazine published from October 1894 until its final issue in April 1971. Founded in Paris during the Belle Époque by Felix Juven, ''Le Rire'' appeared as typical Parisians began to ach ...

'', ''

Le Charivari ''Le Charivari'' was an illustrated magazine published in Paris, France, from 1832 to 1937. It published caricatures, political cartoons and reviews. After 1835, when the government banned political caricature, ''Le Charivari'' began publishing ...

'', and ''

Le Cri de Paris ''Le Cri de Paris'' was an illustrated French political magazine that was founded by Alexandre Natanson in 1897 and was at the beginning a supplement of '' La Revue Blanche''. ''Le Cri de Paris'' title means ''The Paris Protest'' in English, bu ...

''. In Paris, Gris followed the lead of Metzinger and another friend and fellow countryman,

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

. Gris began to paint seriously in 1911 (when he gave up working as a satirical cartoonist), developing at this time a personal Cubist style. In ''A Life of Picasso'', John Richardson writes that Jean Metzinger's 1911 work, ''

Le goûter (Tea Time) ''Le Goûter'', also known as ''Tea Time'' (''Tea-Time''), and ''Femme à la Cuillère'' (''Woman with a teaspoon'') is an oil painting created in 1911 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger (1883–1956). It was exhibited in Paris at ...

'', persuaded Juan Gris of the importance of mathematics in painting. Gris exhibited for the first time at the 1912

Salon des Indépendants Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room, an architectural space in a home * Salon (gathering), a meeting for learning or enjoyment Arts and entertainment * Salon (P ...

(a painting entitled ''Hommage à Pablo Picasso''). "He appears with two styles", writes art historian Peter Brooke, "In one of them a grid structure appears that is clearly reminiscent of the ''Goûter'' and of Metzinger's later work in 1912." In the other, Brooke continues, "the grid is still present but the lines are not stated and their continuity is broken. Their presence is suggested by the heavy, often triangular, shading of the angles between them... Both styles are distinguished from the work of Picasso and Braque by their clear, rational and measurable quality." Although Gris regarded Picasso as a teacher,

Gertrude Stein Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...

wrote in ''

The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas ''The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas'' is a book by Gertrude Stein, written in October and November 1932 and published in 1933. It employs the form of an autobiography authored by Alice B. Toklas, her life partner. In 1998, Modern Library r ...

'' that "Juan Gris was the only person whom Picasso wished away". Juan Gris - Portrait of Pablo Picasso - Google Art Project

In 1912, Gris exhibited at the ''Exposició d'art cubista'',

Galeries Dalmau Galeries Dalmau was an art gallery in Barcelona, Spain, from 1906 to 1930 (also known as Sala Dalmau, Les Galeries Dalmau, Galería Dalmau, and Galeries J. Dalmau). The gallery was founded and managed by the Symbolist painter and restorer . Th ...

in Barcelona, the first declared group exhibition of Cubism worldwide;Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighten, ''A Cubism Reader, Documents and Criticism, 1906-1914'', University of Chicago Press, 2008, pp. 293–295 the gallery

Der Sturm ''Der Sturm'' () was a German avant-garde art and literary magazine founded by Herwarth Walden, covering Expressionism, Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, among other artistic movements. It was published between 1910 and 1932. History and profile ' ...

in Berlin; the ''Salon de la

Société Normande de Peinture Moderne The Société Normande de Peinture Moderne, also known as ''Société de Peinture Moderne'', or alternatively, ''Normand Society of Modern Painting'', was a collective of eminent painters, sculptors, poets, musicians and critics associated with P ...

'' in

Rouen Rouen (, ; or ) is a city on the River Seine in northern France. It is the prefecture of the Regions of France, region of Normandy (administrative region), Normandy and the Departments of France, department of Seine-Maritime. Formerly one of ...

; and the Salon de la

Section d'Or The Section d'Or ("Golden Section"), also known as Groupe de Puteaux or Puteaux Group, was a collective of Painting, painters, sculptors, poets and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism (art), Orphism. Based in the Parisian suburbs, the grou ...

in Paris. Gris, in that same year, signed a contract that gave Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler exclusive rights to his work. At first Gris painted in the style of ''

Analytical Cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

'', a term he himself later coined, Honour, H. and J. Fleming, (2009) ''A World History of Art''. 7th edn. London: Laurence King Publishing, p. 784. but after 1913 he began his conversion to ''Synthetic Cubism'', of which he became a steadfast interpreter, with extensive use of

papier collé Papier may refer to : *paper in French, Dutch, Afrikaans, Polish or German, word that can be found in the following expressions: **Papier-mâché, a construction material made of pieces of paper stuck together using a wet paste ** Papier collé, a ...

or, collage. Unlike Picasso and Braque, whose Cubist works were practically

monochromatic A monochrome or monochromatic image, object or color scheme, palette is composed of one color (or lightness, values of one color). Images using only Tint, shade and tone, shades of grey are called grayscale (typically digital) or Black and wh ...

, Gris painted with bright harmonious colors in daring, novel combinations in the manner of his friend Matisse. Gris exhibited with the painters of the

Puteaux Group The Section d'Or ("Golden Section"), also known as Groupe de Puteaux or Puteaux Group, was a collective of painters, sculptors, poets and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism. Based in the Parisian suburbs, the group held regular meetings ...

in the Salon de ''la

'' in 1912.Cooper, Philip. ''Cubism''. London: Phaidon, 1995, p. 56. His preference for clarity and order influenced the

Purist Purism is an arts movement that took place between 1918 and 1925. Purism may also refer to: *Purism (Spanish architecture) (1530–1560), a phase of Renaissance architecture in Spain *Purism (company) Purism, SPC is an American computer techn ...

style of

Amédée Ozenfant Amédée Ozenfant (15 April 1886 – 4 May 1966) was a French cubist painter and writer. Together with Charles-Edouard Jeanneret (later known as Le Corbusier) he founded the Purist movement. Education Ozenfant was born into a bourgeois f ...

and Charles Edouard Jeanneret (

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

), and made Gris an important exemplar of the post-war "

return to order The return to order ( French: ''retour à l'ordre'') was a European art movement that followed the First World War, rejecting the extreme avant-garde art of the years up to 1918 and taking its inspiration from classical art instead. The movement ...

" movement. In 1915 he was painted by his friend,

Amedeo Modigliani Amedeo Clemente Modigliani (, ; 12 July 1884 – 24 January 1920) was an Italian painter and sculptor who worked mainly in France. He is known for portraits and nudes in a modern style characterized by a surreal elongation of faces, necks, and ...

. In November 1917 he made one of his few sculptures, the polychrome plaster ''Harlequin''.

Crystal Cubism

Gris's works from late 1916 through 1917 exhibit a greater simplification of geometric structure, a blurring of the distinction between objects and setting, between subject matter and background. The oblique overlapping planar constructions, tending away from equilibrium, can best be seen in ''Woman with Mandolin, after Corot'' (September 1916) and in its epilogue, ''Portrait of Josette Gris'' (October 1916;

Museo Reina Sofia Museo may refer to: * Museo, 2018 Mexican drama heist film *Museo (Naples Metro) Museo is a station on line 1 of the Naples Metro. It was opened on 5 April 2001 as the eastern terminus of the section of the line between Vanvitelli and Museo. ...

).Christopher Green, ''Cubism and its Enemies, Modern Movements and Reaction in French Art, 1916–1928'', Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1987, pp. 13–47. The clear-cut underlying geometric framework of these works seemingly controls the finer elements of the compositions; the constituent components, including the small planes of the faces, become part of the unified whole. Though Gris certainly had planned the representation of his chosen subject matter, the abstract armature serves as the starting point. The geometric structure of Juan Gris's Crystal period is already palpable in ''Still Life before an Open Window, Place Ravignan'' (June 1915;

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

). The overlapping elemental planar structure of the composition serves as a foundation to flatten the individual elements onto a unifying surface, foretelling the shape of things to come. In 1919 and particularly 1920, artists and critics began to write conspicuously about this 'synthetic' approach, and to assert its importance in the overall scheme of advanced Cubism.

Designer and theorist

In 1924, he designed ballet sets and costumes for

Sergei Diaghilev Sergei Pavlovich Diaghilev ( ; rus, Серге́й Па́влович Дя́гилев, , sʲɪˈrɡʲej ˈpavləvʲɪdʑ ˈdʲæɡʲɪlʲɪf; 19 August 1929), usually referred to outside Russia as Serge Diaghilev, was a Russian art critic, pat ...

and the famous

Ballets Russes The Ballets Russes () was an itinerant ballet company begun in Paris that performed between 1909 and 1929 throughout Europe and on tours to North and South America. The company never performed in Russia, where the Revolution disrupted society. A ...

. Gris articulated most of his aesthetic theories during 1924 and 1925. He delivered his definitive lecture, ''Des possibilités de la peinture'', at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

in 1924. Major Gris exhibitions took place at the Galerie Simon in Paris and the Galerie Flechtheim in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

in 1923 and at the Galerie Flechtheim in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

in 1925.

Death

After October 1925, Gris was frequently ill with bouts of

uremia Uremia is the term for high levels of urea in the blood. Urea is one of the primary components of urine. It can be defined as an excess of amino acid and protein metabolism end products, such as urea and creatinine, in the blood that would be no ...

and cardiac problems. He died of

kidney failure Kidney failure, also known as end-stage kidney disease, is a medical condition in which the kidneys can no longer adequately filter waste products from the blood, functioning at less than 15% of normal levels. Kidney failure is classified as eit ...

Boulogne-sur-Seine Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious commune in the Parisian area, located from its centre. It is a subprefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department and ...

(Paris) on 11 May 1927, at the age of 40, leaving a wife, Josette, and a son, Georges.

Art market

The top auction price for a Gris work is $57.1 million (£34.8 million), achieved for his 1915 painting '' Nature morte à la nappe à carreaux (Still Life with Checked Tablecloth)''. This surpassed previous records of $20.8 million for his 1915 still life ''Livre, pipe et verres'', $28.6 million for the 1913 artwork ''Violon et guitare'' and $31.8 million for ''The musician's table'', now in the Met.

Selected works

* ''Violin Hanging on a Wall (Le violon accroché)'', (1913). Guggenheim Museum, New York * ''Pears and Grapes on a Table'', (autumn 1913). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.Juan Gris. ''Pears and grapes on a table''
(or ''Still life with pears''), (1913). (Artwork in exhibitions information since 1947). ''artdesigncafe''. Retrieved 5 April 2019 * ''Bottle of Rum and Newspaper (Bouteille de rhum et journal)'', (June 1914). Guggenheim Museum, New York * ''Cherries (Les cerises)'', (1915). Guggenheim Museum, New York * ''Fruit Dish on a Checkered Tablecloth (Compotier et nappe à carreaux)'', (November 1917). Guggenheim Museum, New York

Gallery

File:Juan Gris, 1911, Maisons à Paris (Houses in Paris), oil on canvas, 52.4 x 34.2 cm, Guggenheim Museum.jpg, ''Maisons à Paris'' (''Houses in Paris''), 1911,

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, often referred to as The Guggenheim, is an art museum at 1071 Fifth Avenue on the corner of East 89th Street on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. It is the permanent home of a continuously exp ...

, New York File:Juan Legua MET DT4462.jpg, ''

Juan Legua ''Juan Legua'' is an oil-on-canvas painting by Spanish cubist Juan Gris, created in 1911. It depicts a male sitter smoking a pipe and is one of Gris' earliest works in the cubist style. The work is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of ...

'', 1911,

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

, New York File:Juan Gris - Guitar and Pipe.jpg, ''Guitar and Pipe,'' 1913,

Dallas Museum of Art The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA) is an art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In the 1970s, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Art ...

, Texas File:Juan Gris - Glass of Beer and Playing Cards.jpg, ''Glass of Beer and Playing Cards'', 1913,

Columbus Museum of Art The Columbus Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in downtown Columbus, Ohio. Formed in 1878 as the Columbus Gallery of Fine Arts (its name until 1978), it was the first art museum to register its charter with the state of Ohio. The museum collect ...

, Ohio File:Juan Gris - Violin and Checkerboard.jpg, ''Violin and Checkerboard'', 1913, Private collection File:Juan Gris - La bouteille d'anis - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Bottle of Anís del Mono'', 1914, Queen Sofia Museum, Madrid File:Fantômas - Juan Gris.JPG, ''Fantômas'', 1915,

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, Washington, D.C. File:Newspaper and Fruit Dish Juan Gris.jpeg, ''Newspaper and Fruit Dish'', 1916,

Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

, New Haven, CT File:Juan Gris, Glass and Checkerboard, c. 1917, NGA 166491.jpg, ''Glass and Checkerboard'', c. 1917,

File:Juan Gris, 1917, Compotier et nappe à carreaux, oil on wood panel, 80.6 x 53.9 cm, Guggenheim Museum.jpg, ''Compotier et nappe à carreaux'', 1917,

, New York File:Juan Gris.jpg, ''The Guitar (La Guitarra)'', 1918,

Fundación Telefónica Fundación is a town and municipality of the Colombian Department of Magdalena. Its people are known as Fundanenses. The primary economic activity is livestock-raising, for production of both meat and milk. Other crops are: corn, yuca, ...

at Queen Sofia Museum, Madrid File:Juan Gris - Still Life with Fruit Dish and Mandolin.jpg, ''Still Life with Fruit Dish and Mandolin'', 1919, Private collection, Paris File:Juan Gris, 1919, Arlequin à la guitare, oil on canvas, 116 x 89 cm, Musée National d'Art Moderne.jpg, ''Harlequin with Guitar'', 1919,

Musée National d'Art Moderne The Musée National d'Art Moderne (; "National Museum of Modern Art") is the national museum for modern art of France. It is located in Paris and is housed in the Centre Pompidou in the 4th arrondissement of the city. In 2021 it ranked 10th in ...

, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris File:Le Canigou Juan Gris.jpeg, ''Le Canigou'', 1921,

Albright–Knox Art Gallery The Buffalo AKG Art Museum, formerly known as the Albright–Knox Art Gallery, is an art museum at 1285 Elmwood Avenue, Buffalo, New York, in Delaware Park. the museum's Elmwood Avenue campus is temporarily closed for construction. It hosted e ...

, Buffalo, New York File:The Painter's Window Juan Gris.jpeg, ''The Painter's Window'', 1925,

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

, Maryland

Notes

References

* Cowling, Elizabeth; Mundy, Jennifer. 1990.
On Classic Ground: Picasso, Léger, de Chirico and the New Classicism 1910–1930
'. London: Tate Gallery. * Green, Christopher.
Gris, Juan.
''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press. Web. * Gris, Juan. 1998. ''Juan Gris: peintures et dessins, 1887–1927''. arseille Musées de Marseille. . (French language) *

External links

Juan Gris, Joconde, Portail des collections des musées de France

Juan Gris, Culture.gouv.fr, le site du Ministère de la culture – base Mémoire

– Links to Gris' works
The Athenaeum
– Extensive list and images of Gris' works
Juan Gris in Artfacts.Net
See actual exhibitions and related galleries and museums for Juan Gris *
Juan Gris, L'Esprit nouveau: revue internationale d'esthétique, 1920
Gallica, Bibliothèque nationale de France {{DEFAULTSORT:Gris, Juan 1887 births 1927 deaths Cubist artists Artists from Madrid 20th-century Spanish painters 20th-century Spanish male artists Spanish male painters People of Montmartre Deaths from kidney failure