Still Life with Banderillas

Georges Braque

1911 · Oil and charcoal with sand on canvas · Modern and Contemporary Art

The complex arrangement of intersecting planes, letters, and fractured objects in Braque's work is virtually indistinguishable from Picasso's paintings of the same time. The two spent the summer of 1911 together in Céret, a small town popular with artists in the French Pyrenees, where they explored the formal elements of what later became known as Cubism. The banderillas of the title—wooden sticks with steel barbs used in bullfights—may have been included as a tribute to Picasso, since Braque himself was not a bullfighting enthusiast.

Artist

Georges Braque

Date

1911

Medium

Oil and charcoal with sand on canvas

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Jacques and Natasha Gelman Collection, 1998