"Taste, guts and money" are the founding pillars of an art dealer’s life. Regis Krampf has been following his passion from an early age and gradually built a collection following his taste and intuition. One of the artists most represented in his collection is Georges Braque. Although Krampf owns artworks outside the mentioned period and by other artists, this book is only about Georges Braque’s body of work made after cubism until his time of death in 1963.
Georges Braque was a genius of the 20th-century art scene. He pioneered the fauve movement and invented cubism with Picasso. The period this book focuses on is roughly situated between 1920 and 1960. After a near death experience on the battlefields of WWI, Braque focused on his techniques and inspirations away from affiliations or artist groups. Somehow, he was one of the first artists to kill the idea of an artistic movement following his scientific and artistic discoveries. Georges Braque was an artisan, following the hands-on approach of his father and grandfather who were house painters. The texture - the surfaces he created - echoed the intricacies found in nature’s own handiwork. He would often take his paintings on his usual, interminable bicycle rides and place them directly in nature to observe how they would hold against it. Braque is one of the innovators of Modern painting. The body of work in this important period has long been overlooked. Krampf aims to correct this mistake and give a broader understanding of his work.