Georges Braque

Galerie Paul Rosenberg, Paris (acquired from the artist in 1928)
Paul Rosenberg Gallery, New York (acquired from the above)
Claudia Elizabeth Haines Marsh, Washington, D.C. (probably acquired from the above circa late 1940s)
Robert J. & Antoinette Haskell, Martinsville, Virginia (by descent from the above)
Thence by descent

Washington, D.C., The Phillips Collection & St. Louis, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Georges Braque and the Cubist Still life 1928-1945, 2013, no. 4, illustrated in the catalogue

George Isarlov, Catalogue des oeuvres de Georges Braque, Paris, 1932, no. 476, p. 24
Maeght Éditeur, ed., Catalogue de l'oeuvre de Georges Braque, Peintures 1928-1935, Paris, 1962, illustrated pl. 14
Marco Valsecchi & Massimo Carrà, L'Opera completa di Braque, dalla scomposizione cubista al recupero dell'oggetto 1908-1929, Milan, 1971, no. 377, illustrated p. 102

Painted in 1928, Pichet et journal exemplifies Braque’s ceaseless quest to refine and re-examine the expressive possibilities of his still-lifes during the decades following his invention of Cubism. The dimensionality of the present work is enhanced by Braque's creative choice of color, limiting his palette to focus the viewer’s eye on the fruit and pitcher at the center of the canvas. Braque's still-lifes of the 1920s are today considered as the most classical compositions within his oeuvre, as the hard edges of his pre-World War I paintings evolved into softer curved lines. As the artist once said, "There is in nature a tactile space; I might almost say a manual space... This is the space that fascinates me so much, because that is what early Cubist painting was, a research into space" (quoted in John Golding, Braque, Still Lifes and Interiors, London, 1990, p. 9).     

Here, pigment is applied thickly and in broad brushstrokes and paint is used to achieve texture as well as color. Pichet et journal’s dark background emphasizes spatial depth and increases the resonance of the bright lemon and apple, of the decorative stripes in the glass (echoed in the background beyond the table top) and of the sharply contrasted white copy of Le Journal. The tilted table, pieces of fruit and sharply angled pipe that appear to defy gravity can be seen as Braque's homage to Cézanne, whose still-lifes played such an important role in the development of modern painting (see fig. 1).