Fruit Dish and Glass

Georges Braque French

Not on view

According to Braque, this was his first papier collé, created in September 1912 with mass-produced faux bois wallpaper purchased in Avignon. To gain a surreptitious advantage over his partner and rival, Braque waited until Picasso had left Avignon for Paris before beginning to incorporate strips from the roll into his charcoal drawings. The machine-printed wallpaper was designed to be a cheap alternative to artisan-painted imitation wood, which was itself a cheaper alternative to real tongue-and-groove oak paneling. By using the three offcuts to frame his hand-drawn still life, Braque merged bargain-basement trompe l’oeil and avant-garde Cubist abstraction.

Fruit Dish and Glass, Georges Braque (French, Argenteuil 1882–1963 Paris), Charcoal and cut-and-pasted printed wallpaper with gouache on white laid paper; subsequently mounted on paperboard

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