Marcelle la Brune. by Juan Gris, 1887-1927

Juan Gris, 1887-1927
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Marcelle la Brune.

Original lithograph in green-toned ink. 1921. Signed in pencil. Numbered in pencil from the edition of 50. Issued by the Galerie Simon, Paris 1921. Probably printed at the Atelier Duchatel, Paris 1921. Rare.
Ref: Kahnweiler - Juan Gris Life and Work appendix 'b' no 1
Provenance: Collection Petiet

Extremely fine strong impression. On light off-white chine volant paper, as issued. Excellent condition. Full margins. Image: 11 3/4 x 9 (300x230mm).

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For Gris realist composition and cubist abstraction remained as parallel lines of thought. Gris had met Picasso and Braque when he first came to Paris from Spain in 1906 but it was not until 1910/11 that he began to use a cubist approach to composition. Unlike his friends who were seeking to refine the elements in their compositions down to angular forms expressive of form, space and movement, Gris took fragments of objects and built them up together into an angular rhythmic structure. However the forms themselves remain much more realist. In his drawing he used a quality of simplified pure line which in its entirety is descriptive but in which the elements are seen to have an abstract ?existence?.

After the end of the War in 1918 Gris became increasingly unwell. By the beginning of the 1920?s he had been encouraged to spend as much time as possible away from Paris in the greater warmth of the South of France. It was in early 1921, whilst living in Bandol, that Gris drew his famous series of four portrait lithographs. He wrote to Kahnweiler, his dealer in Paris, on March 21st: ?I have almost completed the portrait of a very pretty woman, I will soon be sending you this lithograph..? In its concentration on rhythmic linear outline it reveals clearly how he saw the form as built up from elements which have a separate existence but which together build up a pattern which is a total descriptive form.

Note: Gris drew only six lithographs which were individual compositions and they are very rarely to be seen. There are also some twenty-three prints which were conceived as images to accompany a text. They are detailed in the appendix to Kahnweiler?s monograph: Juan Gris - His Life and Work, 1947.