Albert Gleizes

Albert Gleizes, “L’Homme au Balcon”, Man on a Balcony (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud), 1912, Oil on Canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art

Albert Gleizes was a French artist, theoretician, philosopher, a self-proclaimed founder of Cubism and an influence on the School of Paris. In 1912 Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger wrote the first major treatise on Cubism, Du “Cubisme”. Gleizes was a founding member of the Section d’Or group of artists.

He was also a member of Der Sturm, and his many theoretical writings were originally most appreciated in Germany, where especially at the Bauhaus his ideas were given thoughtful consideration. Gleizes spent four crucial years in New York, and played an important role in making America aware of modern art.

Gino Severini

Gino Severini, “War Train”, Oil on Linen, 1915, Museum of Modern Art, New York

This painting depicts a fast-moving train with soldiers shooting long, powerful guns. It is in the style of Futurism, an Italian modern movement that glorified technology, war, the dynamism of new objects, and the fast pace of urban life. It was founded by Marinetti, an Italian poet, and practiced by Boccioni, Giacomo Balla, and Severini.

WWI was raging on in Europe at this time and there was new military technology such as machine guns, chemical weapons, and cannons that were used to devastating effect. The painting has an aerial view, which reflects Severini’s Parisian studio that overlooked a train station. The fast movement of the train is broken down into flat, broad color planes that exemplify Cubism’s multiple perspectives seen simultaneously.

The smoke from the guns masks the background of ridged fields, which may hint at the destruction of the Italian countryside. The five shooters are a faceless, menacing, and threatening mass. There are also many interesting, specific details such as the rivets on the train and on the cannon.

“Armored Train” is similar to Francisco Goya’s “Third of May”, painted in1808, which shows a wall of unrecognizable oppressors shooting a defiant subject. However, unlike the Goya rendition, Severini’s painting has no identifiable victim; it’s just general chaos. Despite the violence, the colors are uplifting and the central line of composition thrusts upwards.

Juan Gris

Juan Gris, “Still Life with Checked Tablecloth”, Oil on Canvas, 1915, Private Collection

Juan Gris was born in Madrid. He later studied engineering at Madrid’s School of Arts and Sciences. There, from 1902 to 1904, he contributed drawings to local periodicals. From 1904 to 1905, he studied painting with the academic artist José Moreno Carbonero. It was in 1905 that José Victoriano González adopted the more distinctive name Juan Gris.

In 1906 he moved to Paris and became friends with Henri Matisse, Georges Braque and Fernand Léger. In Paris, Gris followed the lead of another friend and fellow countryman, Pablo Picasso. He submitted darkly humorous illustrations to journals such as Le Rire, L’assiette au beurre, Le Charivari, and Le Cri de Paris.

Gris began to paint seriously in 1910 (when he gave up working as a satirical cartoonist), developing at this time a personal Cubist style. In A Life of Picasso, John Richardson writes that Jean Metzinger’s 1911 work, Le goûter (Tea Time), persuaded Juan Gris of the importance of mathematics in painting. Gris exhibited for the first time at the 1912 Salon des Indépendants (a painting entitled Hommage à Pablo Picasso).

Peter Aurisch

Cubist Tattoos by Peter Aurisch

Based in a quiet undisclosed studio a short train ride outside of downtown Berlin, artist Peter Aurisch creates some of the most original tattoos in the city—and in a place with an estimated 2,000 tattoo artists, that’s saying something. To keep his ideas fresh and original, Aurisch may only begin planning a new piece when the client first arrives. He tends to work freehand without sketches or source imagery, and instead draws inspiration from stories and details provided by his customers.

Aurisch is also printmaker and painter and his works (both on skin and off) are influenced in part by Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, and the cubism of Picasso.

Aurisch’s studio is called Johnny Nevada, a space he shares with Jessica Mach whose tattoos you should also definitely check out. He takes only a single appointment daily. Explore more of his most recent work on Instagram.

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso, “Dying Bull”, 1934, Oil on Canvas, 33.7 x 55.2 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Picasso’s father took him to see his first bullfight in 1889, when he was only nine years old. The spectacle so impressed him that he made it the subject of his very first painting that same year. In 1934 Picasso again took up the subject in an extensive series of drawings, prints, and paintings in which the choreography of the corrida became a metaphor for life and death. Here, Picasso focuses solely on the agony of the dying bull, eliminating the spectators, horses, and matador.

Francis Picabia

Francis Picabia, “La Source (The Spring)”, 1912

Francis Picabia, born Francis-Marie Martinez de Picabia), was a French avant-garde painter, poet and typographist. After experimenting with Impressionism and Pointillism, Picabia became associated with Cubism. His highly abstract planar compositions were colourful and rich in contrasts. Picabia was one of the early major figures of the Dada movement in the United States and in France. He was later briefly associated with Surrealism, but would soon turn his back on the art establishment.

Italian Futurist Movement

Italian Futurist Movement: 1909-1944

Futurism (Italian: Futurismo) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized speed, technology, youth and violence and objects such as the car, the aeroplane and the industrial city. It was largely an Italian phenomenon, though there were parallel movements in Russia, England and elsewhere. It glorified modernity and aimed to liberate Italy from the weight of its past. Cubism contributed to the formation of Italian Futurism’s artistic style.

Ang Kiukok

Paintings by Ang Kiukok

Born in March of 1931 in Davao City Philippine Islands, Ang Kiukok was a painter known for his expressive, Cubist works. He often chose dynamic or disturbing subject matters, which frequently depicting rabid dogs, crucifixions, and screaming figures in an abstracted geometric style. Ang’s work gained both critical and commercial success in the Philippines throughout the 1960s.

Ang’s initial training began at an early age, when he was taught by a local commercial artist the art of charcoal drawing. After his family’s move to Manila, he attended the University of Santo Tomas from 1952 to 1954, where he studied under Filipino cubist painter Vincente Manansala. Ang’s first formal recognition of his work occurred in 1953 when his “Calesa” achieved third prize at the Shell National Students Art Competition. With encouragement from Manansala, he had his first solo show at Manila’s Contemporary Arts Gallery in 1954. Subsequent shows earned Ang many awards from the Art Association of the Philippines.

Ang Kiukok gained national prominence in the 1960s with his distinctive style which fused aspects of cubism, surrealism, and expressionism. His work favored subjects as rabid dogs, fighting cocks, and figures either bound in chains or experiencing great rage. Although Ang did not have a reputation as a critic of the Ferdinand Marcos government, the most violent and gruesome images were painted during Marcos’s reign of martial law.

Ang Kiukok was given the honor of being a National Artist for Visual Arts in 2001, by vitue of Presidential Proclamation No. 32, which was signed on April 20 of 2001 by President Gloria Arroyo. By the end of his life, Ang was not only a critical success but also a commercially popular one. He died in Quezon City, Philippines, in May of 2001 at the age of seventy-four.

Top Insert Image: George Garçon, “Ang Kiukok”, Date Unknown, Gelatin Silver Print

Bottom Insert Image: Ang Kiukok, “Fisherman”, 1981, Oil on Canvas, 88 x 101 cm, Private Collection

Jean Metzinger

Oil Paintings by Jean Metzinger

Jean Metzinger (1883-1956), was a French artist, painter, theorist, writer and poet. His early works, from 1902 to 1904, were influenced by the Neo-Impressionism of Georges Seurat and Henri Edmond Cross. Between 1904 and 1907 Metzinger worked in the Divisionist and Fauve styles.

From 1908 Metzinger was directly involved with Cubism; both as a leading artist and principle theorist. Metzinger, following Picasso and Braque, was chronologically the third Cubist painter. He was a founding member of the Section d’Or group of artists, and together with Albert Gleizes, wrote the first major treatise on Cubism in 1912.