Essential Cubists: Braque, Gris, Léger, and Picasso

Early in the 20th century Georges Braque, Juan Gris, Fernand Léger, and Pablo Picasso started an artistic revolution. In this lecture Cubism scholar Pepe Karmel traces the four artists’ interactions between 1908 through 1926 as they developed the movement now known as Cubism. Each artist created his own personal style: Braque, a subtle harmony of color and texture; Gris, an uncanny clarity of elemental form; Léger, a fusion between man and machine; and Picasso, a radical reinvention of the human figure.

Pepe Karmel is a professor in the Department of Art History at New York University. He is the author of two books, Picasso and the Invention of Cubism (Yale University Press, 2003) and Abstract Art: A Global History (Thames and Hudson, 2020). His next book, Looking at Picasso, will be published by Thames and Hudson in fall 2023. Karmel has written widely on modern and contemporary art, and has also curated or cocurated numerous exhibitions, including “Robert Morris: Felt Works” (Grey Art Gallery, New York, 1989), “Jackson Pollock” (Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1998), and “Dialogues with Picasso” (Museo Picasso Málaga, 2020).