BORN JOSE Victoriano Gonzalez, Gris began his art
studies in Madrid before going to Paris in 1906 to work as a magazine
illustrator. An early associate of Picasso and Matisse, he became one
of the leading exponents of Synthetic Cubism from 1912 onwards, the
majority of his paintings involving the deliberate distortion and
rearrangement of the elements. He also made extensive use of collage,
such as strips of newspaper cut up and rearranged. He moved to Boulogne
after World War I and in the 1920s designed costumes and sets for
several of Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes as well as working as a
book illustrator. In his later years he experimented with brighter,
contrasting colours and also produced a number of multicoloured
sculptures.
Excerpt from Art. The World of Art, from
Aboriginal to American Pop, Renaissance Masters to Postmodernism.
