Albert Gleizes

Before most critics had agreed on what Cubism actually was, Albert Gleizes had already written the book. Du Cubisme (1912[[1]]( ), co-authored with Jean Metzinger, was the first theoretical treatise on the movement: it appeared the same year Gleizes exhibited Harvest Threshing and Les Baigneuses at the Section d'Or[[1]]( , and preceded most major theoretical statements by years. Gleizes came to painting by an unusual route. The son of a Paris fabric designer and nephew of the portrait painter Leon Comerre, he served four years in the French[[1]]( army before returning to art around 1901[[1]]( , working initially in the Impressionist tradition. By 1910 he was among the painters, including Metzinger, Leger, and Delaunay, who met at Puteaux to theorise a Cubism distinct from Picasso and Braque's studio practice. His Man in a Hammock (1913) and Brooklyn Bridge (1915), painted during a visit to New York, showed how he applied Cubist fragmentation to urban subjects. Later in his career he moved toward religious abstraction, particularly after converting to Catholicism in 1941[[1]]( . He co-founded Abstraction-Creation in 1931 and continued writing: La Peinture et ses lois (1923) and Vers une conscience plastique (1932) extended his theoretical concerns well beyond the 1912 treatise. He died in Saint-Remy-de-Provence in June 1953[[1]]( . Although Albert Gleizes produced a large number of paintings, drawings, and prints, he is best known for his theoretical writing on Cubism. In 1912[[1]]( , Gleizes, in collaboration with Jean Metzinger, published Du Cubisme . This work established him as a leading theorist of the Cubist movement. Gleizes was born in Paris in 1881[[1]]( . He began to paint seriously while in the army between 1901 and 1905. Early works included View of Paris Toward Montmartre (1901), The Market at Abbeville (1903), and Picardy (1904). He exhibited for the first time at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris, in 1902. With friends, Gleizes founded the Abbaye de Créteil outside Paris in 1906; this Utopian community closed in 1908 due to financial difficulties. Gleizes served again in the military in 1914. His paintings became abstract by 1915. He travelled to New York, Barcelona, and Bermuda during the next four years; these travels influenced his style. Gleizes died in Avignon in 1953[[1]]( . Albert Gleizes, born in Paris in 1881[[1]]( , began painting seriously while in military service from 1901[[1]]( to 1905. Before this, he worked in his father's fabric design studio. He exhibited paintings at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1902, and at the Salon d’Automne in 1903 and 1904. Gleizes co-authored Du Cubisme with Jean Metzinger in 1912 and helped found the Section d’Or. Military service interrupted his art again in 1914. By 1915, his paintings became more abstract. Travels to New York, Barcelona, and Bermuda influenced his style. His first solo exhibition occurred in Barcelona in 1916. Prints by Gleizes include etchings for Pascal's Pensées , exhibited in Avignon in 1950, then in Lyon. The catalogue included a preface by René Jullian. A gouache on board, Composition (For "Jazz") , dated 1915, is in the Guggenheim collection. Although technically a watercolour, its scale relates it to Gleizes's New York oils. Gleizes died in Avignon in 1953[[1]]( . Albert Gleizes, born in Paris in 1881[[1]]( , is associated with Cubism. Early on, he worked in his father's fabric design studio and began painting seriously while in the army from 1901[[1]]( to 1905. Around 1909-1910[[1]]( , Gleizes met artists such as Henri Le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, and Jean Metzinger. Gleizes and Metzinger collaborated on Du Cubisme , a book published in 1912 that became a theoretical foundation for Cubism. That same year, Gleizes helped found the Section d'Or[[1]]( . His paintings became abstract around 1915. Unlike some Cubists, Gleizes did not focus on analysing visual reality through neutral objects. Instead, he