Jean Dominique Antony Metzinger was a major 20th-century French painter, theorist, writer, critic and poet, who along with Albert Gleizes wrote the first theoretical work on Cubism. His earliest works, from 1900 to 1904, were influenced by the neo-Impressionism of Georges Seurat and Henri-Edmond Cross. Between 1904 and 1907, Metzinger worked in the Divisionist and Fauvist styles with a strong Cézannian component, leading to some of the first proto-Cubist works.
Albert Gleizes was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on Cubism, Du "Cubisme", 1912. Gleizes was a founding member of the Section d'Or group of artists. He was also a member of Der Sturm, and his many theoretical writings were originally most appreciated in Germany, where especially at the Bauhaus his ideas were given thoughtful consideration. Gleizes spent four crucial years in New York, and played an important role in making America aware of modern art. He was a member of the Society of Independent Artists, founder of the Ernest-Renan Association, and both a founder and participant in the Abbaye de Créteil. Gleizes exhibited regularly at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie de l’Effort Moderne in Paris; he was also a founder, organizer and director of Abstraction-Création. From the mid-1920s to the late 1930s much of his energy went into writing, e.g., La Peinture et ses lois, Vers une conscience plastique: La Forme et l’histoire and Homocentrisme.
Le Goûter, also known as Tea Time (Tea-Time), and Femme à la Cuillère is an oil painting created in 1911 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger (1883–1956). It was exhibited in Paris at the Salon d'Automne of 1911, and the Salon de la Section d'Or, 1912.
Le Dépiquage des Moissons, also known as Harvest Threshing, and The Harvesters, is an immense oil painting created in 1912 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes (1881–1953). It was first revealed to the general public at the Salon de la Section d'Or, Galerie La Boétie in Paris, October 1912. This work, along with La Ville de Paris by Robert Delaunay, is the largest and most ambitious Cubist painting undertaken during the pre-War Cubist period. Formerly in the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, this monumental painting by Gleizes is exhibited at the National Museum of Western Art, in Tokyo, Japan.
Les Baigneuses is a large oil painting created at the outset of 1912 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes (1881–1953). It was exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris during the spring of 1912; the Salon de la Société Normande de Peinture Moderne, Rouen, summer 1912; and the Salon de la Section d'Or, autumn 1912. The painting was reproduced in Du "Cubisme", written by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger the same year: the first and only manifesto on Cubism. Les Baigneuses, while still 'readable' in the figurative or representational sense, exemplifies the mobile, dynamic fragmentation of form and multiple perspective characteristic of Cubism at the outset of 1912. Highly sophisticated, both in theory and in practice, this aspect of simultaneity would soon become identified with the practices of the Section d'Or group. Gleizes deploys these techniques in "a radical, personal and coherent manner". Purchased in 1937, the painting is exhibited in the permanent collection of the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
L'Oiseau bleu is a large oil painting created in 1912–1913 by the French artist and theorist Jean Metzinger (1883–1956); considered by Guillaume Apollinaire and André Salmon as a founder of Cubism, along with Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. L'Oiseau bleu, one of Metzinger's most recognizable and frequently referenced works, was first exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1913, several months after the publication of the first Cubist manifesto, Du "Cubisme", written by Jean Metzinger and Albert Gleizes (1912). It was subsequently exhibited at the 1913 Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon in Berlin.
Man on a Balcony, is a large oil painting created in 1912 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes (1881–1953). The painting was exhibited in Paris at the Salon d'Automne of 1912. The Cubist contribution to the salon created a controversy in the French Parliament about the use of public funds to provide the venue for such 'barbaric art'. Gleizes was a founder of Cubism, and demonstrates the principles of the movement in this monumental painting with its projecting planes and fragmented lines. The large size of the painting reflects Gleizes's ambition to show it in the large annual salon exhibitions in Paris, where he was able with others of his entourage to bring Cubism to wider audiences.
Portrait de l'éditeur Eugène Figuière, also referred to as The Publisher Eugene Figuiere, is a painting created in 1913 by the artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. This work was exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, 1913 and Moderni Umeni, 45th Exhibition of SVU Mánes in Prague 1914, and several major exhibitions the following years. Executed in a highly Cubist idiom, the work nevertheless retains recognizable elements relative to its subject matter. The painting, reproduced in Comœdia, 14 November 1913, represents Eugène Figuière. Head of his own publishing company, Figuière strove to be identified with every modern development. In 1912 he published the first and only manifesto on Cubism entitled Du "Cubisme", written by Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger. In 1913 Figuière published Les Peintres Cubistes, Méditations Esthétiques , by Guillaume Apollinaire. The painting, purchased directly from the artist in 1948, is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon, France.
La Femme aux Phlox, also known as Woman with Phlox or Woman with Flowers, is an oil painting created in 1910 by the French artist and theorist Albert Gleizes (1881–1953). The painting was exhibited in Room 41 at the Salon des Indépendants in the Spring of 1911 ; the exhibition that introduced Cubism as a group manifestation to the general public for the first time. The complex collection of geometric masses in restrained colors exhibited in Room 41 created a scandal from which Cubism spread throughout Paris, France, Europe and the rest of the world. It was from the preview of the works by Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Henri Le Fauconnier, Robert Delaunay, and Fernand Léger at the 1911 Indépendants that the term 'Cubism' can be dated. La Femme aux Phlox was again exhibited the following year at the Salon de la Section d'Or, Galerie La Boétie, 1912. La Femme aux Phlox was reproduced in The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations by Guillaume Apollinaire, published in 1913. The same year, the painting was again revealed to the general public, this time in the United States, at the International Exhibition of Modern Art, New York, Chicago, and Boston. The work is now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Gift of the Esther Florence Whinery Goodrich Foundation in 1965.
L'Arbre (The Tree), is a painting created in 1910 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. Executed in an advanced Proto-Cubist style, the work was exhibited in Paris at the Salon des Indépendants, 1910 (no. 2160), the following year Gleizes chose to exhibit this work at the Salon de la Section d'Or, Galerie La Boétie, 1912 (no. 34), and Manes Moderni Umeni, S.V.U., Vystava, Prague, 1914 (no. 33). The painting was again shown at the Grand Palais, Salon des Indépendants, Trente ans d'art indépendant, in 1926. L'Arbre, an important work of 1910, appeared at the decisive Salon des Indépendants of 1911, where Cubism emerged as a group manifestation and spread across the globe, at times shocking the general public.
La Chasse, also referred to as The Hunt, is a painting created in 1911 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. The work was exhibited at the 1911 Salon d'Automne ; Jack of Diamonds, Moscow, 1912; the Salon de la Société Normande de Peinture Moderne, Rouen, summer 1912; the Salon de la Section d'Or, Galerie La Boétie, 1912, Le Cubisme, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, 1953, and several major exhibitions during subsequent years.
L'Homme au hamac, also referred to as Man in a Hammock, is a painting created in 1913 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. The work was exhibited at Moderni Umeni, SVU Mánes, Vystava, Prague, February – March 1914, no. 41; and Der Sturm, Berlin, July – August 1914. The painting was reproduced in Guillaume Apollinaire, Paris-Journal, July 4, 1914 ; and Albert Gleizes, L'Épopée, Le Rouge et le Noir, October 1929, p. 81. Stylistically Gleizes' painting exemplifies the principle of mobile perspective laid out in Du "Cubisme", written by himself and French painter Jean Metzinger. Evidence suggests that the man reclining in the hammock is indeed Jean Metzinger. Formerly in the collection of Metzinger, the first owner of the painting, Man in a Hammock forms part of the permanent collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York.
The Société Normande de Peinture Moderne, also known as Société de Peinture Moderne, or alternatively, Normand Society of Modern Painting, was a collective of eminent painters, sculptors, poets, musicians and critics associated with Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Cubism and Orphism. The Société Normande de la Peinture Moderne was a diverse collection of avant-garde artists; in part a subgrouping of the Cubist movement, evolving alongside the so-called Salon Cubist group, first independently then in tandem with the core group of Cubists that emerged at the Salon d'Automne and Salon des Indépendants between 1909 and 1911. Historically, the two groups merged in 1912, at the Section d'Or exhibition, but documents from the period prior to 1912 indicate the merging occurred earlier and in a more convoluted manner.
Alexandre Mercereau was a French symbolist poet and critic associated with Unanimism and the Abbaye de Créteil. He founded the Villa Médicis Libre, which helped impoverished artists and operated as charitable reformatory for delinquent teenagers. Mercereau's work inspired the revolutionary artistic movement of the early 20th century known as Cubism.
Crystal Cubism is a distilled form of Cubism consistent with a shift, between 1915 and 1916, towards a strong emphasis on flat surface activity and large overlapping geometric planes. The primacy of the underlying geometric structure, rooted in the abstract, controls practically all of the elements of the artwork.
Portrait of an Army Doctor is an oil-on-canvas painting created during 1914–15 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. Painted at the fortress city of Toul (Lorraine) while Gleizes served in the military during the First World War, the painting's abstract circular rhythms and intersecting aslant planes announce the beginning of the second synthetic phase of Cubism. The work represents Gleizes's commanding officer, Major Mayer-Simon Lambert (1870–1943), the regimental surgeon in charge of the military hospital at Toul. At least eight preparatory sketches, gouaches and watercolors of the work have survived, though Portrait of an Army Doctor is one of Gleizes's only major oil paintings of the period.
Woman with Black Glove is a painting by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. Painted in 1920, after returning to Paris in the wake of World War I, the paintings highly abstract structure is consistent with style of experimentation that transpired during the second synthetic phase of Cubism, called Crystal Cubism. As other post-wartime works by Gleizes, Woman with Black Glove represents a break from the first phase of Cubism, with emphasis placed on flat surface activity and large overlapping geometric planes.
Cubist Landscape, also referred to as Tree and River and Paysage cubiste or Arbre et fleuve, is a Cubist painting created in 1914 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. Tree and River is one of Gleizes' last pre-World War I landscapes. A comparison with earlier works such as Le Chemin, Paysage à Meudon (1911), Les Baigneuses (Gleizes) (1912), Harvest Threshing (1912) and Passy, Bridges of Paris (1912) demonstrates the artists' continuity with the theme of deep spatial vistas and wide panoramic views, though with a notable diminution of specific references to reality. The painting was reproduced in the German art and literary magazine Der Sturm October 1920.
Bords de la Marne, also called Les Bords de la Marne and The Banks of the Marne, is a proto-Cubist oil painting on canvas created in 1909 by the French artist, theorist and writer Albert Gleizes. In this work can be seen a departure from the representation of the observable world. The development of Cubist and abstract art in the work of Gleizes was necessarily a transformation from the synthetic preoccupation with his subject matter. The passage of Gleizes' painting from an epic visionary figuration to total abstraction was foreshadowed during his proto-Cubist period. Bords de la Marne measures 54 × 65 cm, and is currently in the permanent collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.
