Une Coupe de Fruit - Les Pommes. A Bowl of Fruit - Apples. by Georges Braque, 1882-1963

Georges Braque, 1882-1963
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Une Coupe de Fruit - Les Pommes. A Bowl of Fruit - Apples.

Original woodcut in colours. 1960/62. Signed in pencil. Inscribed by Braque as 'Epreuve d'Essai 1962'. A working trial proof with slightly variant colours. Subsequently issued in the edition of 50 signed impressions for the series: Si Je Mourrais La-bas. Published by Broder, Paris 1962. Printed at the studio of Fequet et Baudier.
Ref: Vallier - Braque L'Oeuvre Gravé no 181 (8), trial proof.

Superb impression. On pale cream textured wove Moulin d'Ambert paper. Excellent original condition. Printed on a sample sheet for the album edition without text, therefore upright. Full margins; sheet folded at the top for framing. Sheet: 17 7/8 x 14ins. Image: 7 3/4 x 10 1/2ins (197x266mm)

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The theme of 'Still Life? was one to which Braque returned on many occasions from his earliest Cubist period until the end of his life. He always kept a bowl of fruit in his studio not only as a food but because he would frequently turn to compositions on this theme whenever he needed to clear his mind when struggling with some more complex visual idea. He saw the classic ?bowl of fruit? as a vehicle for relaxing his mind, and as a result many of his studies on this subject have a carefree lyrical quality which makes them particularly appealing.

?Coupe de Fruits - Les Pommes? has all this quality of relaxed enjoyment in the interplay of the shapes and glowing colour. It is also of great interest because it is worked in the medium of woodcut. Braque had used woodcut many years earlier for some prints such as the Perséphone but it was not until 1959-60 that he decided to work in it again for the series of images inspired by the Apollinaire First World War poem ?Si Je Mourrais La-bas - If I were to die There?.

The quality which attracted Braque to the medium again, working in the studio of Fequet et Baudier, was the way in which the woodblock can be worked to create texture as well as flat areas of colour. It is this which, through the contrasts between the surfaces of the apples, the bowl and the suggested background, and through the overprinting of the colours which creates surface ?thickness? rather than the translucence of lithography, gives this composition its special visual appeal.

This impression is annotated in Braque?s hand as an ?essai - trial? and is a unique hand-printed proof before the edition for the page of the album, with the image arrnged on a vertical sheet as in the final album, rather than on the horizontal sheet of the separate impressions. The colours are also a tonal variant on the issued impressions, and have a particularly attractive glowing quality.