PARIS.- Georges Braque (1882-1963) is one of the twentieth century's major artists. He was a painter, engraver and sculptor, but first, as the founder of cubism and the inventor of pasted papers, one of the leading figures in the avant-garde of the early twentieth century before focusing definitively on methodical, serial exploration of still life and landscape painting, which made him the French painter par excellence, the heir to Corot and Chardin and the depository of the classical tradition as well as the precursor of post-war abstraction.

The Grand Palais is hosting an ambitious retrospective of his oeuvre. It presents all the periods in his art from Fauvism to his last works, culminating in the dazzling series of large studios and birds. The exhibition's chronological design insists on the highlights of his career, such as cubism, the canephors of the twenties, or the last landscapes, which so appealed to Nicolas de Staël. Thanks to the support of the Musée national d’art moderne and major international collections, it gathers the artist's key works and series exploring various themes – landscapes, gueridons, canephors and the complete cycle of the nine Studios (1949-1956) shown for the first time in a single exhibition – which amplify and sum up his experimental work.

Five display cases filled with often unpublished works, documents and photographs (by Man Ray and Cartier-Bresson among others) explore other perspectives: his collaboration with Pablo Picasso in cubism; the resonance between his art and music and his closeness to Erik Satie; and his affinity with poets such as Pierre Reverdy, Francis Ponge and René Char and important intellectual figures of his time such as Carl Einstein or Jean Paulhan.

No full retrospective of Georges Braque's oeuvre has been presented in Paris since the major show at the Orangerie des Tuileries in 1973-1974.