C ubism and Beyond comprises Cubist and Cubist-influenced works on paper, sculptures and paintings from a wide range of European, Israeli, Australian and British artists. Cubism emerged in Paris in the early years of the twentieth century as arguably the first artistic “collaboration” between Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Capturing a multiplicity of vantage points using flattened, geometric shapes, traditional techniques of perspective and foreshortening were all but completely abandoned.
Sale highlights include important Cubist oils by André Lhote and Roger De La Fresnaye as well as a charming Pablo Picasso work on paper from 1909 owned by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire who coined the term Cubism.
Steeped in the quotidian, Cubism developed its own visual vernacular of cards, dice, glasses, bottles and musical instruments, all of which are present in this varied group of works. Drawing on a diversity of influences, from African masks to the late works of Paul Cézanne, Cubism’s radical emergence prompted a fundamental reimagining of Western artistic conventions which influenced the work of countless artists over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Sale highlights include important Cubist oils by André Lhote and Roger de La Fresnaye as well as a charming Picasso work on paper from 1909 owned by the poet Guillaume Apollinaire who coined the term Cubism. A lovely Cézanne study of trees and a pastoral watercolor by August Macke are complemented by bold pictures by the French painters Robert Marc, Georges Terzian and Michel Moreno, among others.
W hile Cubism aimed to transcend stylistic choices and strove to become a way of seeing unto itself, these lofty canvases were in fact populated with the modest objects of everyday life. The contents of the first Cubists' lives created a sort of visual narrative of symbols, which Picasso and Braque interpreted with multiple vantage points to create the perception of simultaneity. Rooted in convenience and necessity, the bottles and glasses of cheap cafés, pipes, the performers with their musical instruments, and the playing cards that served as cheap amusements and tools to gamble became a type of Cubist lexicon which went on to inspire countless artists. The inclusion of text in works was also revolutionary, and can be attributed to the inexpensive newspaper and printed paper which became widely available at the beginning of the twentieth-century in Europe. This lexicon of Cubism is seen throughout this sale.
