Gris, Juan

The Cubist painter and sculptor Juan Gris, whose real name was José Victoriano Carmelo Carlos González-Pérez, was born in Madrid at the end of the 19th century. After studying art for three years, first in industrial design at the Escuela de Artes y Manufacturas in Madrid and then in painting with the artist José Maria Carbonero, he moved to Paris at the age of barely 19. There he joined forces with artists such as Braque, Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso. However, although he was inspired by his friends Picasso and Braque, whose works he greatly admired, he also very quickly developed his own style.
 

From his first paintings in 1910, Juan Gris clearly belonged to the Cubist movement, which first became analytical and then quickly synthetic. He even became one of the main representatives of this movement, which focused on the exploration of conceptual space. While analytical cubism dissected forms to reveal all facets, synthetic cubism presents the essence of the goals in an often colorful synthesis. Juan Gris' paintings are colorful, serene, and play with the viewer by depicting impossible angles and objects as if fragmented.
 

The printed work of Juan Gris is small, to say the least, as the artist was an inveterate painter. However, there are some beautiful exhibition posters as lithographs printed by Mourlot that reproduce the paintings of the cubist artist. Juan Gris, like his contemporaries Braque and Picasso, was exhibited in all the major museums of the world. His works reach record heights at auctions to this day.