Cubism: Modern Art Revolution

The avant-garde art movement known as Cubism, which emerged in Paris between 1906 and 1911 was influenced by the Impressionists, café society, and the birth of the mechanical age – perhaps even by early motion pictures.

Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque are considered the pioneering collaborators, soon joined by Fernand Léger and Juan Gris, among others.

The current show at the Metropolitan Museum in NYC through February 19, entitled Cubism: The Leonard A. Lauder Collection, shows the maturation of the movement from 1906 to 1926, through seventy-eight works from these four artists. Mr. Lauder used his share of his family’s cosmetics fortune to start his collection in the mid 1970s. He says about his collecting, it’s “…thirty-five years of study, travel, buying, selling, perseverance, mistakes, and refinement…”

The novel Cubist approach sought to fracture the subject, analyze it, then reassemble it using multiple perspectives, providing new context and a fresh interpretation. The often challenging and complex work inspired related movements in cubist music, literature, and cubist architecture, and has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century.

Photos from top: Picasso's Factory, Horta de Ebbo 1909, Braque's Still Life: Le Jour, 1929, Fernand Leger's Three Women 1921, and Juan Gris' Still Life With White Tablecloth 1916.