Picasso and Braque: Partners in Cubism

Man with a Guitar was painted by Picasso in 1911. Despite the title, you can only just make out the shape of a person; it's hard to say where the guitar is or where the torso begins and ends. Geometric shapes, a twisted face, body and background all blend together, and the subject is far harder to read than in the Cubism we saw earlier. The subject has been broken down even more analytically.

Picasso had a partner in this period. Put his painting next to one by the other artist and the two look strikingly alike. The first is by Picasso; the second is by his colleague Georges Braque. Even at the time, the two artists' works were said to be nearly impossible to tell apart.

In 1907 the poet Guillaume Apollinaire introduced Braque to Picasso, who was gradually making a name in Paris, and the following year Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, a young Paris art dealer, put together an exhibition of Braque's work. The two clicked, and from around 1909 to 1914 they worked side by side and developed Cubism together. They kept experimenting with how to represent three-dimensional objects on a two-dimensional surface.

Braque tends to be overshadowed by Picasso, but he was a successful artist in his day. Besides co-founding and developing Cubism with Picasso, he was above all the first to try a technique called papier collé. That is the French name for the collage we all know: cutting up different papers and pasting them together to make a new work. Later Braque stuck not only paper but also sand and sawdust onto his pictures, bringing materials not normally considered part of painting onto the canvas. Picasso, influenced by him, made collage works too, and we'll see one next.

Two artists who once made such similar work side by side were pulled apart when World War I broke out in 1914. Braque, being French, went off to fight; Picasso, being Spanish, did not. After his discharge, Braque focused more on still lifes, while Picasso carried on with his art on the strength of the reputation he had built, and the two grew apart. Remember Man with a Guitar, and along with it Picasso's partner Georges Braque.