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Born in Laval, France on May 21, 1844, Henri Julien Félix Rousseau is considered to be the archetype of the self-taught artist and one of the first of the Naïve or Primitive artists. “Rousseau’s brightly coloured, dream-like paintings, many of them depicting exotic subjects, anticipated some of the major artistic movements of the 20th century, including Surrealism.”

Following high school, Rousseau worked for a lawyer and studied law but joined the army in 1863 after committing a minor perjury. In 1868, he moved to Paris after the death of his father and took a job with the Paris government as a custom’s official.

Rousseau retired from work in 1893 to devote more time to painting and supplemented his income with a variety of part-time jobs including teaching painting and drawing. In the same year, he moved to Montparnasse, a centre for artistic activity in Paris.

Rousseau took his own art very seriously, however, many critics at the time often ridiculed his work as childish and untutored. Today, Rousseau is celebrated for his dream like jungle paintings with their bold and primitive style, incredibly detailed with lush animal and plant life. His exotic scenes did not originate from any worldly travels. In fact, Rousseau never left France. His paintings were based on images adapted from printed sources, and from visits to the Paris Natural History Museum, and the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden and zoo.

As his career moved forward, Rousseau increasingly associated with the avant-garde. He exhibited alongside the Fauves at the Salon d’Automne in 1905 where he met Apollinaire, Robert Delaunay, Picasso and others. By 1910, sales of his work grew considerably.

Unfortunately, on September 2, 1910, as his work was beginning to gain recognition, Rousseau, died after suffering from an infected leg wound.

At the end of 1910 Max Weber organized an exhibition of Rousseau’s works at the 291 gallery in New York, and in 1911 the Salon des Indépendants held a retrospective of forty-five paintings and five drawings.

Check out Rousseau’s “The Dream” and “The Sleeping Gypsy” up close on Google Art Project.

Sources: MOMA, New York Times, Wikipedia

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Born on May 13, 1882 in Argenteuil-sur-Seine, France, Georges Braque was a major painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor of the 20th century. Along with Pablo Picasso, Braque was a key figure in the development of Cubism. He was also responsible for the introduction of many collage techniques including stenciling and combed false wood-grain effects.

Braque grew up in Le Havre and, following in his father’s and grandfather’s footsteps, trained to be a house painter and decorator. He studied in Paris under a master decorator and received his craftsman certificate in 1901. In the evenings, he studied painting at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1897-1899. He studied painting at the Académie Humbert in Paris from 1902-04.

Braque’s first works were Impressionist but by 1906 was painting in a Fauvist style, successfully exhibiting that year in the Salon des Indépendants. Braque met Pablo Picasso in 1907. Both artists were influenced by Paul Cézanne’s use of geometry in depicting his subjects in his work . Cézanne’s paintings greatly impacted the direction of the Paris avant-garde, and soon after, Cubism.

From 1909 Braque and Picasso worked together daily to develop Cubism. By 1911 their styles were extremely similar and during this time, it was virtually impossible to distinguish one from the other. In 1912, the duo began to incorporate elements of collage into their paintings and to experiment with the papier collé (pasted paper) technique.

From about 1911, Braque began experimenting with other media and techniques, as well as new canvas shapes. He began mixing paint with sand used a house-painter’s comb to introduce areas of imitation wood-grain into his paintings. In 1912, Braque married Marcelle Lapre and rented a house at Sorgues, near Avignon. There, he and Picasso began using pre-existing objects and materials in their paintings.

Braque and Picasso’s artistic collaboration lasted until 1914 when Braque served in the French Army during World War I. He was wounded in the war and temporarily blinded in 1915, but resumed painting in 1916. During his recovery in 1917, Braque began a close friendship with the Spanish artist Juan Gris who was also closely associated with the Cubist movement.

In the 1920s, Braque returned to a more “realistic interpretation of nature, although certain aspects of Cubism always remained present in his work.” He painted landscapes and reintroduced the figure into his work which was characterized by bold color and textured surfaces. In the mid-1920s Braque also designed the decor for two Sergei Diaghilev ballets.

In 1931 Braque made his first engraved plasters and began to portray mythological subjects. His first retrospective was held in 1933 at the Kunsthalle Basel. In 1937, he won first prize at the Carnegie International, in Pittsburgh.

From about 1936, Braque’s paintings shifted again from the still-life to wider interior views. “Into ornately decorated rooms he introduced impersonal, flattened figures, such as in Woman with Mandolin or The Duet. The new mood suggested by his use of brighter colours was offset, however, by a series of macabre vanitas still-lifes, linked to the theme of the artist’s studio, that he began in 1938, possibly in despair at the approach of World War II. He also built a sculpture studio near his house at Varengeville and began experimenting with sculpture about this time, producing simple and playful, if rather two-dimensional works.

During World War II Braque remained in Paris. He painted mainly still lifes and interiors that were stark and sombre in colour. During this time, Braque also made lithographs, engravings, and sculptures.

In 1954, Braque designed stained-glass windows for the church of Varengeville. During the last few years of his life, Braque’s poor health prevented him taking on any large-scale work, but he continued to paint, make lithographs, and design jewelry.

Georges Braque died on August 31, 1963, in Paris. He is buried in the church cemetery in Saint-Marguerite-sur-Mer, Normandy, France.