Cubism Timeline

(1907 - Present)

Cubism was a groundbreaking avant-garde art movement that emerged in Paris in the early 20th century. Pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, it abandoned traditional perspective and instead depicted subjects as fragmented, geometric forms viewed from multiple angles simultaneously. Cubism profoundly influenced modern art, inspiring movements such as Futurism, Constructivism, and Abstract art. More Less

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Origins and Precursors

Paul Cézanne's late paintings exhibited

1904

Paul Cézanne's late works, emphasizing geometric simplification of nature into cones, spheres, and cylinders, were shown in Paris exhibitions. His approach profoundly influenced Picasso and Braque, laying the conceptual groundwork for Cubism's fragmentation of form.

Image source: Paul Cézanne

Picasso moves to Paris and settles at the Bateau-Lavoir

1904

Pablo Picasso settled in the Bateau-Lavoir studio building in Montmartre, a hub for avant-garde artists and writers. The environment of experimentation and exchange helped incubate the radical ideas that would become Cubism.

Image source: Bateau-Lavoir

Picasso's Rose Period gives way to new influences

1905 - 1906

After his melancholic Blue Period, Picasso entered his Rose Period, then began studying Iberian sculpture and African masks. These non-Western sources inspired simplified, angular forms that would appear in his proto-Cubist works.

Image source: Pablo Picasso

Matisse exhibits 'Le bonheur de vivre' at the Salon des Indépendants

Mar 1906

Henri Matisse's large Fauvist canvas shocked Paris audiences with its flattened forms and arbitrary color. Its radical departure from naturalism opened the door for even more extreme experiments by Picasso and others.

Image source: Le bonheur de vivre

Cézanne retrospective held at the Salon d'Automne

Sep 1907

A major memorial retrospective of Paul Cézanne's paintings at the Salon d'Automne exposed young artists to his method of constructing form from color patches and geometric volumes. It became a catalyst for both Picasso and Braque's move toward Cubism.

Image source: Salon d'Automne

Key Artists and Works

Picasso paints 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon'

1907

Picasso's landmark painting depicted five prostitutes with fractured, mask-like faces and angular bodies influenced by African and Iberian art. Though initially met with shock and confusion, it is widely regarded as the proto-Cubist work that shattered centuries of Western pictorial tradition.

Image source: Les Demoiselles d'Avignon

Braque paints 'Large Nude' under Cézanne's influence

1908

Inspired by Cézanne's retrospective exhibition and by Picasso's breakthrough, Braque painted 'Grand Nu,' reducing the female figure to faceted planes. This marked his decisive turn toward the geometric language that would define early Cubism.

Image source: Georges Braque

Picasso paints 'Portrait of Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler'

1910

Picasso's portrait of his dealer dissolved the sitter into a lattice of shimmering gray-brown facets, one of the most rigorous examples of high Analytic Cubism. The subject is recognizable only through subtle clues like hands and a watch chain.

Image source: Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler (Picasso)

Léger develops his 'Tubism' variant

1910 - 1920

Fernand Léger adapted Cubist fragmentation into bold cylindrical forms celebrating the machine age, seen in works like 'Nude Model in the Studio.' His mechanized aesthetic earned the nickname 'Tubism' and bridged Cubism and Purism.

Image source: Fernand Léger

'Ma Jolie' exemplifies peak Analytic Cubism

1911 - 1912

Picasso's 'Ma Jolie,' referencing a popular song and his lover Eva Gouel, pushed Analytic Cubism to its limits, with lettering floating across an almost illegible field of facets. The inclusion of words signaled a shift toward incorporating real-world references.

Juan Gris joins the Cubist avant-garde

1912

Spanish artist Juan Gris, living in the same building as Picasso, adopted Cubism and quickly developed his own systematic, brightly colored style. He became one of the movement's most theoretically rigorous practitioners before his early death in 1927.

Image source: Juan Gris

Picasso creates 'Still Life with Chair Caning'

May 1912

Widely considered the first modern collage, this oval work combined oilcloth printed with chair caning and rope edging with painted letters. It revolutionized art by asserting that a picture could be a constructed object rather than an illusionistic window.

Image source: Found object

Picasso enters Neoclassical period while retaining Cubist practice

1917 - 1924

Following his collaboration with the Ballets Russes, Picasso alternated between monumental classical figures and continued Cubist still lifes. This dual practice demonstrated Cubism's durability as a working method even as tastes shifted toward order and tradition.

Development of Cubism

Braque sees 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' in Picasso's studio

Nov 1907

Georges Braque visited Picasso's Bateau-Lavoir studio and was stunned by the painting's radical geometry. Despite initial reservations, he recognized its revolutionary potential and soon began collaborating closely with Picasso.

First Cubist works shown publicly at Kahnweiler's gallery

Nov 1908

Kahnweiler's small Paris gallery hosted the first public display of Braque's Cubist landscapes. Because the official Salons rejected these works, Kahnweiler's private gallery became essential for introducing Cubism to collectors and critics.

Braque exhibits landscapes rejected as 'cubes'

Nov 1908

Braque's landscapes of L'Estaque, painted in reduced tones and blocky geometric forms, were submitted to the Salon d'Automne and rejected. Critic Louis Vauxcelles reportedly remarked that Braque reduced everything to 'geometric schemas and cubes,' giving the movement its name.

Kahnweiler signs exclusive contracts with Picasso and Braque

1909

Dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler signed contracts to represent Picasso and Braque exclusively, providing financial support that allowed them to experiment freely. His gallery became the primary venue for exhibiting Cubist works outside official Salons.

Analytic Cubism emerges with fragmented monochromatic works

1909 - 1912

Working side by side, Picasso and Braque developed Analytic Cubism, breaking subjects into overlapping translucent planes rendered in muted browns and grays. Their intense collaboration, often described as being 'roped together like mountaineers,' produced works nearly indistinguishable from each other.

Image source: Cubism

Apollinaire champions the new movement in print

1910

Poet and critic Guillaume Apollinaire defended and theorized the new painting in essays and reviews, coining terms like 'Orphism.' His writings gave Cubism intellectual legitimacy and connected it to contemporary poetry.

Image source: Guillaume Apollinaire

Section d'Or group forms around Puteaux discussions

1911

Artists including Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Robert Delaunay, and Marcel Duchamp gathered regularly near Paris to discuss mathematics and the golden section as applied to painting. This group broadened Cubism beyond Picasso and Braque's intimate circle.

Image source: Section d'Or

Cubist room debuts at the Salon des Indépendants

Apr 1911

The Salon des Indépendants featured a dedicated Salle 41 displaying works by Gleizes, Metzinger, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, and others. It marked Cubism's first major public showing and sparked widespread press attention and controversy.

Image source: Société des Artistes Indépendants

Cubist room debuts at the Salon des Indépendants

Gleizes and Metzinger publish 'Du Cubisme'

1912

Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger published the first major theoretical treatise on Cubism, articulating its principles of simultaneous perspective and mobile viewpoint. The book helped codify and spread the movement's ideas across Europe.

Image source: Du "Cubisme"

Synthetic Cubism begins with collage and papier collé

1912 - 1914

Picasso and Braque pioneered collage, pasting newspaper, wallpaper, and sheet music onto canvases. By introducing real materials into art, they blurred the line between representation and reality and shifted Cubism toward bolder colors and simpler shapes.

Image source: Cubism

Section d'Or exhibition opens at Galerie La Boétie

Oct 1912

The Salon de la Section d'Or brought together over 200 works by Cubist and proto-Cubist artists, including Duchamp's 'Nude Descending a Staircase.' It was the largest Cubist exhibition to date and introduced the movement to a broad audience.

World War I disperses the Cubist circle

Aug 1914 - Nov 11, 1918

The outbreak of war ended the close Picasso–Braque partnership as Braque and other artists were mobilized. Kahnweiler, a German national, was forced into exile, scattering his artists among other dealers and altering the movement's course.

Image source: World War I

Legacy and Influence

Grünes Gewölbe... no — Cubist architecture flourishes in Prague

1911 - 1914

Prague became the only city where Cubism was applied to architecture, with buildings like the House of the Black Madonna featuring faceted, crystalline façades. Architects Pavel Janák and Josef Gočár translated painterly fragmentation into three-dimensional design.

Armory Show introduces Cubism to America

Feb 17, 1913 - Mar 15, 1913

The International Exhibition of Modern Art in New York displayed European modernists including Duchamp, whose 'Nude Descending a Staircase' caused a sensation. The show scandalized American audiences but galvanized a generation of US artists toward abstraction.

Image source: Armory Show

Cubism spreads internationally after the war

1918 - 1925

In the postwar years, Cubist ideas spread to Russia, Italy, Germany, Czechoslovakia, and beyond, influencing Futurism, Constructivism, De Stijl, and Art Deco. Cubism evolved from a Parisian experiment into a foundational international language of modern art.

Kahnweiler publishes 'Der Weg zum Kubismus'

1920

From exile in Switzerland, Kahnweiler published the first book-length study of Cubism, offering an insider's account of Picasso and Braque's revolutionary development. The text remains a key primary source on the movement's origins.

Key Facts

Cubism is generally considered to have begun around 1907-1908, inspired by Paul Cézanne's late paintings and African and Iberian art.
Pablo Picasso's painting 'Les Demoiselles d'Avignon' (1907) is often regarded as the proto-Cubist work that launched the movement.
The movement had two main phases: Analytic Cubism (c. 1908-1912), which fragmented objects into abstracted geometric planes, and Synthetic Cubism (c. 1912 onward), which introduced collage and simpler shapes.
Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso worked so closely together during Cubism's development that Braque described them as being 'roped together like mountaineers.'
Cubism revolutionized Western art by rejecting single-point perspective, paving the way for abstraction and influencing movements like Futurism, Dada, and Constructivism.

Source

This Cubism timeline was generated with the help of AI, using information found on the internet.

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