BRIC-A-BRAQUE by Bob Kessel

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CITRON by Bob Kessel

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LE JOUR by Georges Braque

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Georges Braque was born on May 13, 1882, in Argenteuil-sur-Seine, France. He grew up in Le Havre and studied evenings at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts there from about 1897 to 1899. He left for Paris to study under a master decorator to receive his craftsman certificate in 1901. From 1902 to 1904, he painted at the Académie Humbert in Paris, where he met Marie Laurencin and Francis Picabia. By 1906, Braque’s work was no longer Impressionist but Fauve in style; after spending that summer in Antwerp with Othon Friesz, he showed his Fauve work the following year in the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. His first solo show was at Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler’s gallery in 1908. From 1909, Pablo Picasso and Braque worked together in developing Cubism; by 1911, their styles were extremely similar. In 1912, they started to incorporate collage elements into their paintings and to experiment with the papier collé (pasted paper) technique. Their artistic collaboration lasted until 1914. Braque served in the French army during World War I and was wounded; upon his recovery in 1917, he began a close friendship with Juan Gris.

After World War I, Braque’s work became freer and less schematic. His fame grew in 1922 as a result of an exhibition at the Salon d’Automne in Paris. In the mid-1920s, Braque designed the decor for two Sergei Diaghilev ballets. By the end of the decade, he had returned to a more realistic interpretation of nature, although certain aspects of Braque’s Cubism always remained present in his work. In 1931, Braque made his first engraved plasters and began to portray mythological subjects. His first important retrospective took place in 1933 at the Kunsthalle Basel. He won First Prize at the Carnegie International, Pittsburgh, in 1937.

During World War II, Braque remained in Paris. His paintings at that time, primarily still lifes and interiors, became more somber. In addition to paintings, he also made Braque etchings, lithographs, engravings, prints and sculpture. From the late 1940s, he treated various recurring themes, such as birds, ateliers, landscapes, and seascapes. In 1954, he designed stained-glass windows for the church of Varengeville. During the last few years of his life, Braque’s ill health prevented him from undertaking further large-scale commissions, but he continued to paint, make lithographs, and design jewelry. He died on August 31, 1963, in Paris.

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All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness.

- Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

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SELF PORTRAIT WITH MODEL by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner

ARTIST WITH MODEL by Bob Kessel

Born May 6, 1880, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner studied architecture and painting before forming the artists’ group Die Brücke (“The Bridge”) in Dresden on 7 June 1905, with Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Kirchner moved to Berlin in 1911, and within two years the group split.

Kirchner worked at a feverish pace, producing art that drew its subject matter from his studio life with artist friends and models, the street and nightclub life of the city, and summer trips to beaches. His works were exhibited and collected from 1905, and by the mid-teens Kirchner had a number of devoted collectors, both private and institutional.

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Kirchner joined the German army, but eventually suffered a nervous breakdown. Despite ill health and struggles to recover, he continued to produce major paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture. In 1917 he moved to Davos, Switzerland, and began to include in his work images of rural life and the surrounding Alps. Through the 1920s major exhibitions of his work were held in Berlin, Frankfurt, Dresden, and other cities. In 1931 he was made a member of the Prussian Academy.

Labeled a degenerate artist by the Nazis, Kirchner was asked to resign from the Berlin Academy of Arts in 1933. In 1937, more than 600 of his works were confiscated from German museums and were either destroyed or sold, many ending up in America. In 1938 the psychological suffering caused by the Nazi authorities rejecting him as “un-German,” the dispersal and destruction of his works, and the Nazi occupation of Austria so close to his home in Davos led to Kirchner’s suicide.

BERLIN FRAU  print by Bob Kessel exhibited at gallery show

BERLIN FRAU by Bob Kessel

GREEN GIRL by Bob Kessel

FRANZI by Bob Kessel

BARE BACK by Bob Kessel

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BRUCKE MADCHEN by Bob Kessel

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ZWEI NACKTEN FRAUEN by Bob Kessel

“In an artist’s life, death is perhaps not the most difficult thing.”
- Vincent Van Gogh

FIELD by Bob Kessel apres Van Gogh

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NIGHT CAFE by Bob Kessel apres Van Gogh

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Vincent Van Gogh by Bob Kessel

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