When was Cubism? Douglas Cooper’s brilliant surveys, "The Cubist Epoch" (1971) and "The Essential Cubism" (1983), argued that Cubism was created by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the years 1907–14, that Fernand Léger and Juan Gris carried it forward for a few years longer, but that its development was essentially concluded by 1920. This has remained the canonical view in Anglo-Saxon scholarship. It is, however, profoundly mistaken. In the 1931 edition of "Die Kunst der 20 Jahrhundert," the great German critic Carl Einstein reproduced more of Picasso and Braque’s Cubist pictures from the 1920s than from the prewar years. The great Swiss collector G.F. Reber, a friend of Einstein’s, acquired Cubist masterpieces from both eras. Like Einstein, Frank Elgar reproduced more works from the 1920s than from 1907-14 in his 1957 handbook, "Picasso: époque cubiste." Christopher Green, in "Cubism and Its Enemies" (1987), devotes twenty insightful pages to the “Living Cubism” of 1920–1924.
This lecture traces Picasso and Braque’s renewed dialogue between 1917–1927 and after. It begins with Picasso’s Cubist compositions of 1915-16, when, as Emily Braun has demonstrated, Giorgio de Chirico inspired a new tragic dimension in Picasso’s painting. In 1917, Braque returned from military service. Resuming work, he introduced new textures and patterns that were quickly adopted by Picasso. In contrast to the abstraction, quasi-monochromy, and impassivity of their earlier work, the new pictures were legible, colorful, and full of feeling, with a tragic undertone that continued to reflect de Chirico. Between 1922–25, Braque and Picasso produced a series of masterpieces of affective Cubism. Meanwhile, in his 1924 studies for the ballet "Mercure," Picasso began to utilize a meandering line detached from the colors and textures around it. This new “curvilinear Cubism” (as Alfred Barr called it) culminated in arabesque compositions such as "Painter and Model" and "L’Atelier des Modistes" (both 1926). Picasso’s arabesque provided an important model for later Braque, the School of Paris, and even Abstract Expressionism.
Organized by the Leonard A. Lauder Research Center for Modern Art
