Albert Gleizes (French 1881-1953)
The painter and art author Albert Gleizes, who became known as the main representative of Cubism, was born in Paris in 1881. He trained as a tracer in his father's firm. In 1901 Gleizes showed early landscape paintings in an Impressionist style at the Société Nationale's exhibitions. As a co-founder of the "Salon d'Automne" and member of the "Salon des Indépendants" Albert Gleizes had close contact to the artistic avant-garde.
With several friends, including the writer René Arcos, Gleizes founded the Abbaye de Créteil outside Paris in 1906. This utopian community of artists and writers scorned bourgeois society and sought to create a non-allegorical, epic art based on modern themes. Influenced by Henri Le Fauconnier and Jean Metzinger he turned towards a geometrically simplified style in 1908-09 and produced the so-called "Paysages classiques". He joined the Cubist circle around Robert Delaunay in 1910. Soon he discovered his own pictorial language, however, which dismantles the objects and re-organises them rhythmically - like in Futurism. The following year he wrote the first of many articles. In collaboration with Metzinger, Gleizes wrote Du Cubisme, published in 1912.
Albert Gleizes' art theoretical discussions were continued in the group "La Section d'Or", which was founded by Jacques Villon the very same year. His ideas of creating a dynamics in Cubism inspired other painters such as Le Fauconnier, Roger de Fresnaye and Fernand Léger.
In 1914 Albert Gleizes was drafted to military service and travelled until 1919 to the USA, Canada, Cuba, the Bermudas and to Spain. His first solo show was held at the Galeries Dalmau, Barcelona, in 1916. After the war, Gleizes became deeply involved in a search for spiritual values, as reflected in his painting and writing and he tried to transfer Christian topics into the Cubist image language. In 1927 he founded Moly-Sabata, another utopian community of artists and craftsmen, in Sablons.
Later in his career Gleizes executed several large commissions, including the murals for the Paris World's Fair of 1937. In 1947 a major Gleizes retrospective took place in Lyon at the Chapelle du Lycée Ampère. From 1949 to 1950 Gleizes worked on illustrations for Pascal's Pensées. He executed a fresco, Eucharist, for the chapel Les Fontaines at Chantilly in 1952. Gleizes died in Avignon on June 23, 1953.
collections include
Musée Picasso, Antibes
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon
Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville, Paris
Musée national d'Art moderne, Paris
Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienne
Madrid, Musée Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venise
National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin
Tate Modern, London
Musée du Petit Palais, Genève
Museu de Arte Contemporda Universidade, Sao Paulo
Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
National Gallery of Art, Washington
The National Museum of Modem Art, Tokyo
Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel-Aviv
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Art Gallery of south Australia, Adelaide
Bibliography
BROOKE, Peter, For and Against the Twentieth Century, New Haven and London, 2001
VARICHON, Anne, Albert GLEIZES, Albert Gleizes: Catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1998
MASSENET, Michel, Albert Gleizes, 1881-1953, Paris, 1999
Solo Exhibitions
1947, Retrospective Exhibition, Lyon
1964, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
1969, Grand Palais, Paris
1973, International Cultural Centre, Anvers
1986, Musée de Pontoise, Pontoise
1987, Musée d'Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris
1991, Musée-Atelier Cézanne Aix-en-Provence
2001, Albert Gleizes, Cubism in Majesty, Retrospective Exhibition, Museo Picasso, Barcelona and musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon
Group Exhibitions
1910 - 1914, Salon des Indépendants, Quai d'Orsay, Paris
1910, Jack of Diamonds, Moscow
1911 - 1913, Salon d'Automne, Grand Palais, Paris
1912, Salon de La Section d'Or, Galerie La Boétie, Paris
1913, Armory Show, New York
1921, Der Sturm, Berlin
1938, Salon des Tuileries, Paris
1950, Musée national d'Art moderne Paris