Georges Braque

Painter, collagist, and sculptor Georges Braque co-founded Cubism with Pablo Picasso and revolutionized 20th-century painting. Throughout his oeuvre, which comprised mostly still lifes, Braque fractured the picture plane in order to explore a variety of viewpoints; he painted in muted tones, fragmenting and reconstructing tablescapes into energetic, geometric forms. Braque also made innovative collages: He helped develop the papier collé technique, pasting imitation wood-grain paper to his Cubist compositions.

The artist originally trained as a decorator before turning to fine art. He embraced Impressionism and Fauvism, then solidified his signature Cubist style. After serving in World War I, Braque adopted vibrant color palettes and a freer, more naturalistic style. During his lifetime, the artist enjoyed retrospectives at the Louvre and Kunsthalle Basel. Today, his work belongs in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Centre Pompidou, among others (via Artsy).