Checkerboard and Playing Cards

Juan Gris

Paris, 1915 · Gouache, graphite, and resin on cream-colored wove paper, mounted to paperboard · Modern and Contemporary Art

Many Cubist artworks depict dice, game boards, and cards interspersed among bottles of liquor, wineglasses, coffee cups, and newspapers. Gris’s still lifes are not everyday genre scenes, but rather exercises in distillation and design. The patterned checkerboard was one of Gris’s favorite motifs. This gouache is related to a larger painting of the same title in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Artist

Juan Gris

Date

Paris, 1915

Medium

Gouache, graphite, and resin on cream-colored wove paper, mounted to paperboard

Department

Modern and Contemporary Art

Credit line

Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Gift of Leonard A. Lauder, 2016