Colour lithograph Phoenix after a gouache by George Braque

Colour lithograph entitled Phoenix after a gouache by Georges Braque (1882-1963)

Colour lithograph after a gouache by Georges Braque from the set of 12 colour lithographs included in the limited edition of 398 portfolios entitled ‘Les Metamorphoses de Braque’ published by Armand and George Israel with the printed signature of the artist.
The artwork was entirely made in France and is printed on Velin d’Arches paper in Arches in the Vosges department using the traditional lithographic process, one drawing for each colour, one colour per press run.

Year of Publication: 1988
Dimensions: Height 45 cm and width 58 cm
Condition: Good Plus with minor tear in the middle of the top edge repaired by leading conservator and with minor stress marks hardly visible under glass

This lithograph free-floated and in a stylish modern frame would make a strikingly attractive piece of decorative art.

The French artist Georges Braque was born on 13 th March 1882 in Argenteuil, Val-d’Oise and grew up in Le Havre. Painter, collagist, sculptor and draughtsman Braque co-founded Cubism with Picasso and revolutionized 20 th -century painting. Like his father and grandfather before him, Braque studied and decorating to begin with but soon found that he was interested in artistic paintings and studying it in the evenings alongside his occupation as a decorator at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre.
Throughout his oeuvre which consisted mostly Still Lifes, Braque fractured the picture plane in order to explore a variety of viewpoints; he painted in muted tones, fragmenting and reconstructing table-scapes into energetic, geometric forms.
Braque also made innovative collages and helped develop the papier colle technique, pasting imitation wood-grain paper to his Cubist compositions.
He embraced both Impressionism and Fauvism and created his signature Cubist style.
After serving in World War 1, Braque adopted vibrant colour palettes and a freer, more naturalistic style.
During his lifetime, there were retrospective at the Louvre and Kunsthalle Basel.
There are collections of his work, among others, in the Museum of Modern Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Centre Pompidou.

On the secondary market, a number of Braque’s pieces have achieved eight-figure sums.