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Lot Essay
In his middle-years Braque, like Monet before him, was drawn towards the dramatic, chalky cliffs of the region's coastline that he had first encountered as a boy. From the late 1920s onwards he spent a part of every year at a house he had built for himself on the coast at Varengeville, and it became his valued retreat away from the pressures of life in Paris. It was while staying here that he began his series of small-scale beach landscapes of which Les cabines pavoisées is a prime example.
Landscape had been crucial in Braque's formulation of cubism in the years preceding 1910. However it was to disappear from his repertoire until these beach pictures of twenty years later. The quietly lyrical pattern and simple, planar construction of Les cabines pavoisées, whilst indebted to the rigours of Braque's cubist still-lifes, also recall his work as a ballet designer for Diaghilev.
Landscape had been crucial in Braque's formulation of cubism in the years preceding 1910. However it was to disappear from his repertoire until these beach pictures of twenty years later. The quietly lyrical pattern and simple, planar construction of Les cabines pavoisées, whilst indebted to the rigours of Braque's cubist still-lifes, also recall his work as a ballet designer for Diaghilev.