Profil by Georges Braque, 1882-1963

Georges Braque, 1882-1963
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Profil

Original lithograph printed white line on dark purple. 1960. Signed in pencil. Inscribed by Braque as a proof apart from the edition. Proof apart from the total edition of 80 signed impressions and 195 unsigned album impressions. Issued in the series: Tir à l'Arc, published by Broder Paris 1960. Printed at the studio of Mourlot.
Ref: Mourlot no 91. Vallier - Braque L'Oeuvre Gravé no 153

Excellent rich impression. On pale cream japan paper. Excellent condition. Full margins.
Sheet: 15 1/4 x 10 3/4inch. Image: 8 ¼ x 5 5/8inch. (210x143mm)

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An unusual and beautiful illustration of Braque's constantly inventive approach to printmaking. The reverse treatment of the medium, with the line scraped-out from a flat-tone background in lithography so that it stands out as white line against a deep purple-black background, combines the fluidity and softness of free drawing with the sharpness and incision of, for example, the gouge-cut strokes of Matisse's linocuts. Although Braque combined such scraper drawing with other ways of handling lithography in a number of prints in the 1950's, this is the only work in which he used it in isolation and with such purity.

In the mid 1950's Braque became interested in various 'Zen' texts, and he was encouraged by his friend the publisher Broder to combine a selection of such texts with comments from his own journals - the famous Cahiers - and accompany them with prints. In the event Braque drew an etching, two woodcuts and eight lithographs in a wide variety of styles, and the series known as 'Tir à L'Arc became one of his most admired sequences of prints from the 1960s.