Does the name of Georges Braque hide the greatest injustice of the 20th century? If the paternity of cubism goes naturally to Pablo Picasso with his sulphurous Demoiselles d'Avignon, does the origin of the movement not come from a reflection of Henri Matisse in front of Maisons à l'Estaque which he then compares to " small cubes” of color, arranged with each other? Unfortunately, more discreet than his Spanish sidekick in our museums, Georges Braque once again emerges from the crushing shadow of the Minotaur on the occasion of this attractive exhibition in the heart of the Cévennes. Sixty years after his death, this gentle monograph celebrates the graphic work of a solitary artist who, despite his shyness, was able to forge sincere friendships in the history of art, like that formed with Pierre André Benedict. Between 1950 and 1961, the two men bound by a deep respect punctuated by studio conversations maintained a rich artistic and literary correspondence. At 70, Braque is then at the height of his glory, PAB is not 30 years old. Never mind, the painter and the publisher tamed each other and together produced 22 illustrated books on his life, his universe. And what a legacy! By focusing on his works on paper, his charcoal drawings and his prints, the exhibition takes a look at the creative process of an artist who is both influential and influenced, author of a patient and continuous work, inseparable of his painting. In his drypoints, lithographs and cartalegraphies, which Pierre André Benoît suggested to Braque, there was no breaking point. The artist is not characterized here by his radicalism, but by his poetry to reconcile beings and things, the visible and the invisible. Witness his woodcuts illustrating Erik Satie's lyrical comedy, Le Piège de Méduse, or the 16 etchings produced at the request of the art dealer Ambroise Vollard for Hesiod's Theogony. Beyond its priceless masterpieces, the exhibition brings together nearly 200 treasures on paper making an inventory of a harmonious graphic work crossed by myths and bearing the imprint of the gesture of the unconscious. A universe in the throes of metamorphoses, between incompleteness and infinity...

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Yellow, black, blue and this bird twirling in the sky. A token of the friendship between Georges Braque and Pierre André Benoît, this lithograph signed by the Cubist master testifies to the sincere affection between the two men. The winged motif in the painter's work is still debated. Manifestation of the divine for PAB, distant homage to Van Gogh for Braque: birds invade the painter's canvases, from the 1950s until his death in 1963.

PIERRE ANDRÉ BENOÎT MUSEUM-LIBRARY
July 13 to October 29, 2023
52 climb of the Laurels, 30100 Alès