Juan GrisSpanish, 1887–1927The Coffee Mill
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The Cleveland Museum of Art
Cleveland, United States
It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.
- Checked
- In this state since
- Source
- The museum
About the painting
A member of Picasso's intimate circle, Gris began painting austere Cubist compositions around 1910. After 1915, his compositions became more complex and his colors richer. This painting features a coffee mill, a bottle, and a wine glass on a table covered with a green cloth. The simulated wood-grain pattern on the coffee mill's base, perhaps inspired by Picasso's collage constructions, adds textural variety to this arrangement of fragmented and flattened geometric shapes.
The Cleveland Museum of Art
Particulars
- Accession number
- 1980.8
In the catalog
Sources
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- Image: Wikimedia Commons — Public domain
Meanwhile, in the life of Juan Gris
The whole life1910s–1920s
The pupil Picasso “wished away”
Gris regarded Picasso as a teacher, but according to Gertrude Stein in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, Picasso treated him with undisguised irritation: Gris was the only person Picasso wished away. At first Gris was spoken of only as Picasso’s follower, but when he became an independent artist and one of the leaders of Cubism, Picasso grew jealous.
1913–1918
From Analytical to Synthetic Cubism
At first Gris painted in the style of Analytical Cubism, a term he himself later coined; after 1913 he converted to Synthetic Cubism, making extensive use of papier collé, or collage, an evolution that ran through 1914–1918. Unlike Picasso and Braque, whose Cubist works were practically monochromatic, he painted in bright harmonious colours in daring, novel combinations, in the manner of his friend Matisse.
1915
Modigliani paints Gris’s portrait
In 1915 his friend Amedeo Modigliani painted his portrait.
