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José Victoriano González-Pérez (March 23, 1887
— May 11, 1927), better known as Juan Gris, 
was a Spanish painter and sculptor who lived and
worked in France most of his life. His works are
closely connected to the emergence of an
innovative artistic genre — cubism.

Born in Madrid, Spain, Gris studied mechanical
drawing at the Escuela de Artes y Manufacturas in
Madrid from 1902 to 1904, during which time he
contributed drawings to local periodicals. From
1904 to 1905 he studied painting with the academic
artist José Maria Carbonero. 

In 1906 he moved to Paris and became friends with
Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Fernand LĂ©ger, and
in 1915 was painted by his friend, Amedeo
Modigliani.

In Paris, Gris followed the lead of another friend
and fellow countryman, Pablo Picasso. His portrait
of Picasso in 1912 is a significant early cubist
painting done by a painter other than Picasso or
Georges Braque.

Although he submitted humorous illustrations to
journals such as Lassiette au beurre, Le
Charivari, and Le Cri de Paris, Gris began to
paint seriously in 1910. By 1912 he had developed
a personal Cubist style.


At first painted in the analytic style of cubism
but after 1915, he began his conversion to
synthetic cubism of which he became a steadfast
interpreter, with extensive use of papier collé.
Unlike Picasso and Braque whose works were
monochromatic, Gris concentrated on painting with
bright colors.

In 1922 the painter first designed ballet sets and
costumes for Sergei Diaghilev.

Gris articulated most of his aesthetic theories
during 1924 and 1925. He delivered his definitive
lecture, Des possibilités de la peinture, at the
Sorbonne in 1924.

Major Gris exhibitions took place at the Galerie
Simon in Paris and the Galerie Flechtheim in
Berlin in 1923 and at the Galerie Flechtheim in
DĂĽsseldorf in 1925.

He died in Boulogne-sur-Seine.

Although he regarded Picasso as a teacher,
Gertrude Stein acknowledged that Gris, "was the
one person that Picasso would have willingly wiped
off the map."

Before 2005, a Gris painting sold for more than
United States dollar|$8.4 million.


Commonscat|Juan Gris