Cubism in Color: The Still Lifes of Juan Gris

Soon after arriving in Paris in 1906, artist Juan Gris (José Victoriano González-Pérez, 1887–1927) befriended Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. He considered the two his “masters,” and his early Cubist works followed their artistic lead. Today, Gris is himself recognized as a Cubist innovator, admired for his aesthetic, technical skill, compositional logic, and use of color. These and other attributes are discussed in this exhibition catalogue’s accessible text, which illuminates five distinct periods of Gris’s still lifes between 1911 and 1927. Additional scholarly essays consider the role of still-life painting in Gris’s oeuvre, the reception of his work in the United States, and his legacy. Small reproductions of his and his contemporaries’ work accompany the essays, while high-quality full-page plates offer a close look at Gris’s extraordinary Still Life: The Table (1914), Fantômas (1915), and more.