Bird and Tree Forms. L'Oiseau et L'Arbre. by Georges Braque, 1882-1963

Georges Braque, 1882-1963
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Bird and Tree Forms. L'Oiseau et L'Arbre.

Original woodcut in two overprinted colours (blue-green and black) on a hand-washed red-brown background. 1960/62. Signed in pencil. Inscribed by Braque in his own hand as 'H.C.' (Proof). Special proof apart from the signed edition of 50 impressions. Issued by Broder, Paris 1962. Edition issued in the series: Si Je Mourrais Là-Bas. Very rare in
this form.
Ref: Vallier - Braque L'Oeuvre Gravé no 181 (1)

Superb impression, crisp and dense, with the beautiful hand-washed background sheet. On textured handmade wove paper. Excellent condition. Worked to the full sheet size,
as issued.Full untrimmed sheet wityh the handmade deckle edges. Sheet: 14 1/2 x 18 7/8ins (368x480mm).

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L'Oiseau et L'Arbre, with its deceptive simplicity of form and its rhythm of line, is a beautiful and revealing example of the constant subtlety of Braque's approach to printmaking. The form is printed from a single block inked in a combination of rich black over deep blue-green. The blue-green is matt whilst the black has a an almost glazed shiny surface, the combination creating a fascinating movement of surface and tonality. The block was printed onto a sheet of heavy handmade textured paper. This sheet is hand-brushed with a deep wash of brown tone varying in density with the strokes of the brush. There was no full edition of this print in this form, only some five proofs were pulled by Braque like this, each slightly different in the treatment of the background and signed in pencil and inscribed in his hand, as here, as H.C. (Hors Commerce).

In the series ' Si Je Mourrais La-bas' (dedicated by Braque to his links with Apollinaire during the battle in the trenches in the First War and inspired by Apollinaire's text) Braque used a series of wonderful free images, some based on his favourite symbol of the flying bird and others on flower forms, to express the joy in life itself which had been so forcibly brought home to him after the horrors of war and which became the central theme of his artistic message. The qualities of rhythm, of lyrical flow and space, make some of the works of this later period images of extraordinarily satisfying emotion.