Georges Braque Georges Braque ( ; 13 May 1882 – 31 August 1963 ) was a major 20th - century French painter and sculptor who , along with Pablo Picasso , developed the art style known as Cubism . Early life . Georges Braque was born on 13 May 1882 , in Argenteuil , Val - d ' Oise . He grew up in Le Havre and trained to be a house painter and decorator like his father and grandfather . However , he also studied artistic painting during evenings at the École des Beaux - Arts , in Le Havre , from about 1897 to 1899 . In Paris , he apprenticed with a decorator and was awarded his certificate in 1902 . The next year , he attended the Académie Humbert , also in Paris , and painted there until 1904 . It was here that he met Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia . Fauvism . His earliest works were impressionistic , but after seeing the work exhibited by the artistic group known as the " Fauves " ( Beasts ) in 1905 , Braque adopted a Fauvist style . The Fauves , a group that included Henri Matisse and André Derain among others , used brilliant colors to represent emotional response . Braque worked most closely with the artists Raoul Dufy and Othon Friesz , who shared Braque ' s hometown of Le Havre , to develop a somewhat more subdued Fauvist style . In 1906 , Braque traveled with Friesz to L ' Estaque , to Antwerp , and home to Le Havre to paint . In May 1907 , he successfully exhibited works of the Fauve style in the Salon des Indépendants . The same year , Braque ' s style began a slow evolution as he became influenced by Paul Cézanne , who had died in 1906 , and whose works were exhibited in Paris for the first time in a large - scale , museum - like retrospective in September 1907 . The 1907 Cézanne retrospective at the Salon d ' Automne greatly affected the avant - garde artists of Paris , resulting in the advent of Cubism . Cubism . Braque ' s paintings of 1908 – 1913 reflected his new interest in geometry and simultaneous perspective . He conducted an intense study of the effects of light and perspective and the technical means that painters use to represent these effects , seeming to question the most standard of artistic conventions . In his village scenes , for example , Braque frequently reduced an architectural structure to a geometric form approximating a cube , yet rendered its shading so that it looked both flat and three - dimensional by fragmenting the image . He showed this in the painting " Houses at l ' Estaque " . Beginning in 1909 , Braque began to work closely with Pablo Picasso , who had been developing a similar proto - Cubist style of painting . At the time , Pablo Picasso was influenced by Gauguin , Cézanne , African masks and Iberian sculpture , while Braque was interested mainly in developing Cézanne ' s ideas of multiple perspectives . “ A comparison of the works of Picasso and Braque during 1908 reveals that the effect of his encounter with Picasso was more to accelerate and intensify Braque ’ s exploration of Cézanne ’ s ideas , rather than to divert his thinking in any essential way . ” Braque ’ s essential subject is the ordinary objects he has known practically forever . Picasso celebrates animation , while Braque celebrates contemplation . Thus , the invention of Cubism was a joint effort between Picasso and Braque , then residents of Montmartre , Paris . These artists were the style ' s main innovators . After meeting in October or November 1907 , Braque and Picasso , in particular , began working on the development of Cubism in 1908 . Both artists produced paintings of monochromatic color and complex patterns of faceted form , now termed Analytic Cubism . A decisive time of its development occurred during the summer of 1911 , when Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso painted side by side in Céret in the French Pyrenees , each artist producing paintings that are difficult — sometimes virtually impossible — to distinguish from those of the other . In 1912 , they began to experiment with collage and Braque invented the " papier collé " technique . French art critic Louis Vauxcelles used the terms " bizarre cubiques " in 1908 after seeing a picture by Braque . He described it as ' full of little cubes ' . The term ' Cubism ' , first pronounced in 1911 with reference to artists exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendants , quickly gained wide use but Picasso and Braque did not adopt it initially . Art historian Ernst Gombrich described Cubism as " the most radical attempt to stamp out ambiguity and to enforce one reading of the picture — that of a man - made construction , a colored canvas . " The Cubist style spread quickly throughout Paris and then Europe . The two artists ' productive collaboration continued and they worked closely together until the beginning of World War I in 1914 , when Braque enlisted with the French Army . In May 1915 , Braque received a severe head injury in battle at Carency and suffered temporary blindness . He was trepanned , and required a long period of recuperation . Later work . Braque resumed painting in late 1916 . Working alone , he began to moderate the harsh abstraction of cubism . He developed a more personal style characterized by brilliant color , textured surfaces , and — after his relocation to the Normandy seacoast — the reappearance of the human figure . He painted many still life subjects during this time , maintaining his emphasis on structure . One example of this is his 1943 work " Blue Guitar " , which hangs in the Allen Memorial Art Museum . During his recovery he became a close friend of the cubist artist Juan Gris . He continued to work during the remainder of his life , producing a considerable number of paintings , graphics , and sculptures . Braque , along with Matisse , is credited for introducing Pablo Picasso to Fernand Mourlot , and most of the lithographs and book illustrations he himself created during the 1940s and ' 50s were produced at the Mourlot Studios . In 1962 , Braque worked with master printmaker Aldo Crommelynck to create his series of etchings and aquatints titled “ L ’ Ordre des Oiseaux ” ( “ The Order of Birds ” ) , which was accompanied by the poet Saint - John Perse ' s text . Braque died on 31 August 1963 , in Paris . He is buried in the cemetery of the Church of St . Valery in Varengeville - sur - Mer , Normandy , whose windows he designed . Braque ' s work is in most major museums throughout the world . Style . Braque believed that an artist experienced beauty " … in terms of volume , of line , of mass , of weight , and through that beauty [ he ] interpret [ s ] [ his ] subjective impression . . . ” He described " objects shattered into fragments … [ as ] a way of getting closest to the object … Fragmentation helped me to establish space and movement in space ” . He adopted a monochromatic and neutral color palette in the belief that such a palette would emphasize the subject matter . Although Braque began his career painting landscapes , during 1908 he , alongside Picasso , discovered the advantages of painting still life s instead . Braque explained that he “ … began to concentrate on still - lifes , because in the still - life you have a tactile , I might almost say a manual space … This answered to the hankering I have always had to touch things and not merely see them … In tactile space you measure the distance separating you from the object , whereas in visual space you measure the distance separating things from each other . This is what led me , long ago , from landscape to still - life ” A still life was also more accessible , in relation to perspective , than landscape , and permitted the artist to see the multiple perspectives of the object . Braque ' s early interest in still lifes revived during the 1930s . During the period between the wars , Braque exhibited a freer style of Cubism , intensifying his color use and a looser rendering of objects . However , he still remained committed to the cubist method of simultaneous perspective and fragmentation . In contrast to Picasso , who continuously reinvented his style of painting , producing both representational and cubist images , and incorporating surrealist ideas into his work , Braque continued in the Cubist style , producing luminous , other - worldly still life and figure compositions . By the time of his death in 1963 , he was regarded as one of the elder statesmen of the School of Paris , and of modern art . 2010 theft . On 20 May 2010 , the Musée d ' Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris reported the overnight theft of five paintings from its collection . The paintings taken were " Le pigeon aux petits pois " ( " The Pigeon with the Peas " ) by Pablo Picasso , " La Pastorale " by Henri Matisse , " L ' Olivier Près de l ' Estaque " ( " Olive Tree near Estaque " ) by " Georges Braque " , " " ( " Woman with a Fan " ) by Amedeo Modigliani and " Nature Morte aux Chandeliers " ( " Still Life with Chandeliers " ) by Fernand Léger and were valued at ( ) . A window had been smashed and CCTV footage showed a masked man taking the paintings . Authorities believe the thief acted alone . The man carefully removed the paintings from their frames , which he left behind .