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Urban Animals - Art Gallery of Alberta

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The <strong>Alberta</strong> Foundation for the <strong>Art</strong>s Travelling Exhibition Program<br />

The History <strong>of</strong> Abstraction: A Survey con’t<br />

Henri Matisse<br />

Harmony in Red, 1908<br />

André Derain<br />

Charing Cross Bridge, London 1906<br />

National <strong>Gallery</strong> <strong>of</strong> <strong>Art</strong>, Washington<br />

The paintings <strong>of</strong> the Fauve artists were characterised by seemingly wild brush work and strident<br />

colours and, in their focus on colour over line and drawing, the subjects <strong>of</strong> their paintings came<br />

to be characterized by a high degree <strong>of</strong> simplification and abstraction.<br />

Pablo Picasso<br />

Les Demoiselles d/ Avignon, 1907<br />

Museum <strong>of</strong> Modern <strong>Art</strong><br />

New York, New York<br />

Pablo Picasso<br />

Portrait <strong>of</strong> Ambroise Vollard,<br />

1910<br />

While the Impressionists and Fauve artists are the direct ancestors <strong>of</strong> the abstract<br />

movement in 20th century art, the real creator <strong>of</strong> abstraction was Pablo Picasso. Picasso<br />

used primative art from Africa and Oceania as a ‘battering ram’ against the classical<br />

conception <strong>of</strong> beauty. Picasso made his first cubist paintings, such as Les Demoiselles<br />

d’Avignon, based on Cézanne’s idea that all depiction <strong>of</strong> nature can be reduced to three solids:<br />

cube, sphere and cone. Together with Georges Braque, Picasso continued his experiments and<br />

invented facet or analytical cubism. As expressed in the Portrait <strong>of</strong> Ambroise Vollard, Picasso<br />

created works which can no longer be read as images <strong>of</strong> the external world but as worlds <strong>of</strong> their<br />

own.<br />

AFA Travelling Exhibition Program, Edmonton, AB. Ph: 780.428.3830 Fax: 780.421.0479<br />

youraga.ca

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