Cubist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

'Someone is Looking' or 'Nude in an Interior', art pencils on paper by Franco Gentili (School of Rome). An artwork of sizeable presence, Gentili's cubis...

Cubist Market Scene with 10 portraits
The frenetic pace of a busy French market is brilliantly and creatively interpreted by Walt Louderback in his own version of Cubism. Louderback creates a circular composition that integrates his stylized figures while they are performing their daily tasks. The figures are reduced to flat interlocking shapes which artfully coalesce to form a whole.
with a desaturated palette. At first view, they seem abstract but with further study their identities and behaviors are revealed. In time, the viewer solves the Louderback puzzle and is delighted doing it.
The cast of characters clockwise are :
1: In the lower-left, there is the flower girl with 6 bouquets of flowers of different colors and shapes. 2: Above her is a manual laborer with his heavy cargo strapped to his back. 3: In the upper left corner, we see the cropped head of a baker with a basket of fresh rolls. 4: To the immediate right of the baker, there is a portly policeman supervising. 5: Above his right shoulder is another flower girl. 6: To her right is a French nun...

A beautiful and elegant portrait drawing of a young woman circa 1920 by French artist Marie Laurencin. The subject has her hair tied back and has a scarf flowing across her chest and behind her back. The work has been draw in coloured pencils - the girl's face and features are drawn and filled in grey with red used to colour and emphasise her lips and give blush to her cheeks. The scarf is coloured in blues and greens. A truly wonderful piece. Signature: Signed lower right Dimensions: Framed: 17"x15" Unframed: 10"x8" Provenance: Catherine Gide, "Villa Theo"- Le Lavandou The collection of Andre Gide and Theo van Rysselberghe Around 1905 Georges Braque took Marie Laurencin to the Bateau Lavoir, Picasso's famously run-down studio on Rue Ravignan. Laurencin and Braque had both studied at the Académie Humbert. Laurencin originally aimed to paint on porcelain but Braque had the full measure of his colleague's talent and persuaded her to broaden her horizons. On Rue Ravignan she found herself in an environment where she could thrive, where painting and literature mingled freely in a state, Picasso said, of permanent cross-fertilization, and at a moment when Fauvism was about to be supplanted by Cubism. Soon Guillaume Apollinaire was devoting to her an important chapter in his The Cubist Painters: Aesthetic Meditations ( Peintres Cubistes: Méditations Esthétiques). Married to a German baron she fled France during World War I and lived in Spain, where she met Picabia among others, to return to Paris in 1920. Laurencin's first canvases are sharper in tone than her later work. From her Ravignan period she left some paintings of real quality which also record the Bateau Lavoir dwellers, famously Picasso and Fernande Olivier, his mistress. Laurencin would enlarge on this composition by grouping together Picasso, Olivier (who wrote Picasso and his Friends ( Picasso et ses Amis)), the poet Marguerite Gillot, the poet Maurice Chevrier, Guillaume Apollinaire and André Salmon. The Pont Mirabeau, dear to Apollinaire, can be seen in the background. During her time at Ravignan she also produced burin engravings and woodcuts inspired by fables and romantic street songs. Laurencin had found her style. She became a painter of doe-like girls, merging realism and fantasy like some poets of her generation. Some see Eugène Carrière's influence in her early works, yet her palette shows much more distinct shading. Laurencin created this unique palette, rich in colours chosen for their softness, the full range of which she explored, deftly and firmly stressing tonalities. Famous among her works are the following: Guitar, Child with Violin, Princess, Sirens, Portrait of Jeannot, Portrait of René Dalize, Portrait of Marcel Jouhandeau and Portrait of André Salmon. She also illustrated many books: Marie Laurencin's Fan ( L'Éventail de Marie Laurencin), a collection of poems written for her by writer friends, The Attempt at Love ( La Tentative Amoureuse) and The Poems of André Walter ( Les Poésies d'André Walter) by André Gide, books by Jacques de Lacretelle, André Salmon, Paul Morand, Louise Faure-Favier and Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Laurencin also pioneered new approaches to theatre set designing, memorably so in the Cocteau and Milhaud collaboration Does ( Les Biches) for the Ballets Russes in 1924, and What Do Girls Dream Of? ( À Quoi Rêvent les Jeunes Filles?) for the Comédie Française in 1928, even providing themes for the ballet. She exhibited for the first time in 1907 at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. In 1912 she showed her work with Robert Delaunay at the Galerie Barbazangues and contributed to the decoration of the Cubist house for the Salon d'Automne. In 1937 at the Petit Palais, Laurencin provided an exemplary sample of her work, including Portrait (1904), Portrait of a Young Woman in a Pink and Black Hat, two canvases executed in 1908 and 1909 and both entitled Guillaume Apollinaire and his Friends (referring to the Picasso circle), Flowers, Two Sisters, Marie Laurencin in Blue (1936), Game of Badminton, Flower Pot, Blue Angel (1929), Young Girls with a Mandolin...

Masterfully designed and rendered complex Cubist figural work. Work is signed lower left and it is not framed.

Portrait of Jacqueline is an original drawing realized by Gian Paolo Berto, in 1975, as Hommage to Pablo Picasso. Watercolored China ink drawing. Good conditions except for some ho...

French Art Deco illustration drawing, hand-painted with ink and colored pencil on tracing paper. Featuring a stylish female model with cubist influence extravagant dress. This illust...

A cubist portrait by Modern artist Emil Bisttram. While known for his modern abstract pieces this portrait is a departure from his previous works. Elongated triangles compose the bac...

'Chat Curieux' is an original mixed media on paper drawing created by French post-cubist and expressionist artist Raymond Debiève in 1968. Featuring both a theme and style dear to Cu...

'Etreinte Bleue I' is an original mixed media on paper piece created by French post-cubist and expressionist artist Raymond Debiève in 1970. Featuring a subject dear to Pablo Picasso...

'Cheveux Verts' is an original diluted oil on paper painting created by French post-cubist and expressionist artist Raymond Debiève (1931-2011) in 1968. Featuring a palette mostly ma...

'Mother and Child', mixed media on fine paper (1970), by Raymond Dèbieve (1931 - 2011). In a clear nod to Picasso's influence both stylistically and in terms of subject matter (Picas...

'Portrait of a Post-Cubist Woman', gouache on paper (circa 1960s), by Raymond Dèbieve (1931 - 2011). A pattern of mysterious Egyptian-inspired eyes domina...