The Painter’s Window

1924

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Juan Gris

The Painter’s Window

Juan Gris

The Painter’s Window

1924

Physical Qualities Oil on canvas, Unframed: 39 1/4 × 31 3/4 in. (99.7 × 80.6 cm.) Framed: 49 1/4 × 40 3/4 in. (125.1 × 103.5 cm.)

Credit Line Bequest of Saidie A. May

Object Number 1951.306

Juan Gris' work always retains identifiable elements, with tight geometry and bold patterns distinguishing his compositions. In the Painter's Window, produced at the end of his life, the artist flattened and interlocked a guitar, fruit bow, sheet music, a palette, paintbrush, playing cards, and a tabletop like pieces in an upright jigsaw puzzle. These typical Cubist props, which allude to the roles of chance, play, and the abstraction of music, are arranged in clever punning ways. The sheet music mimics the strings of the guitar while the blobs of paint on the palette rhyme with the diamonds of the playing cards.

The Baltimore Museum of Art by bequest 1951; The Baltimore Museum of Art on extended loan, 1940-1951; Saidie A. May, by purchase 1940; from Valentine Gallery; ["Galerie Kahnweiler, Paris"/Galerie Simon, Paris, no date]?; Dr. Reber, Lausanne, Switzerland, by purchase 1925; from Daniel Henry Kahnweiler, Paris

Mark Rosenthal, University Art Museum, Berkeley, "Juan Gris", February 1-April 14, 1984, circulated to National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, "Juan Gris", September-November 1992, no. 118, p. 265; circulated to Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, December 1992-March 1993, and Kroller-
Muller, Otterlo Amsterdam, April-June 1993.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, "The Triumph of French Painting, Masterpieces from Ingres to Matisse", March 12-July 16, 2000; circulated to The Philbrook Museum of Art, The Nortin Museum of Art, Dayton Art Institute, The Royal Academy, Albright-KNox Art Gallery, through 1/6/20002

Helen Molesworth and Katy Rothkopf, BMA, "European Abstraction from the Collection 1912-1948", February 28-December 2, 2001.

Katy Rothkopf, "Matisse, Picasso and the School of Paris", circulated to; North Carolina Museum of Art, October 10, 2004-January 16, 2005.

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, "Juan Gris Retrospective", June 02, 2005-September 2, 2005.

Portland Museum of Art, Maine, "Picasso, Braque, Leger and the Cubist Spirit, 1919-1939," June 27-October 20, 1996, cat. 22.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, "A Century of Baltimore Collecting," 1941, cat. 93, ill. p. 90.

Baltimore Museum of Art. Still Life and Flower Paintings: The Baltimore Museum of Art, November 2 – December 9, 1945. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1945, cat. no. 56, page 20.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Themes and Variations," 1948, cat. 59; ill. 31.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, "The Saidie A. May Collection of Modern Paintings and Sculpture," March, 1950, cat. 45.

Adelyn D. Breeskin, "The Painter's Window," BMA News, 6 (December 1943), pp.4-5.

The Baltimore Museum of Art News, "Catalogue of the Saidie A. May Collection of Modern Paintings and Sculpture," March, 1950, cat. 45, p. 14.

The Sunday Sun, Aug. 15, 1954, Magazine (Brown) sec., ill.

"Object of the Week," The Sunday Sun, March 6, 1954, Magazine sec., ill.

Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida, "Director's Choice," 1955.

"A Picture Book," BMA, 1955, ill., p. 69.

Milwaukee Art Institute, "Still Life Painting," Sept. 6 - Oct. 3, 1956, circulated Cincinnati Art

Museum, Oct. 10-Nov. 6, 1956, "Still Life Painting," cat. 26, ill.

"A Tribute to Adelyn D. Breeskin," BMA News Quarterly, Vol. XXV, No. 4, Summer 1962, ill. 11.

Santa Barbara Museum of Art, California, August 11-Sept. 14, 1958, cat. 68, ill. p. 23.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Still Life-Fruit & Flowers," March 7- April 4, 1961, cat. 38.

Gertrude Rosenthal, The Baltimore Museum of Art, "From El Greco to Pollock: Early & Late Works by European & American Artists," Oct. 22 - Dec. 8, 1968, cat. 108, ill. 131.

Rosenthal, Gertrude, ed. From El Greco to Pollock: Early and Late Works by European and American Artists. Baltimore, MD: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1968, pp. 131, ill.

K.R. Greenfield, "The Museum: Its First Half Century," Annual I, BMA 1966, ill. 60.

"Saidie A. May Collection," BMA Record, 3, no. 1, 1972.

The Baltimore Museum of Art, "Saidie A. May Collection," September 6 - November 22, 1972, cat. p. 76, ill. and color ill. 15.

Gaya-Nuno, Juan Antonio, "Juan Gris," trans. by Kenneth Lyons, 1st U.S. edition, Boston:

NY Graphic Society, 1975.

Kunstverein, Hamburg, Germany, "Moderne Europaische Malerei," 1927 (ill. in Cahier d'art, no. 6, 1927).

Galerie Simon, Paris, "Gris exhibition," 1928, no. 45. Kunsthaus, Zurich, "Juan Gris," 1933 (Cahier d'art, no. 5-6, 1933, no. 135).

Paul Trachtman, "When Cubism met the decorative arts in France", Smithsonian Magazine, July 1996, ill. p. 50.

Paloma Esteban Leal. "Juan Gris: Paintings and Drawings 1910-1927." Madrid: Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, plate 140.

Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, "Impressionism to Surrealism From the Baltimore Museum of Art. Selections from the Collections of Claribel and Etta Cone and Saidie Adler May and Blanche Adler," February 8 - 4April 21, 2002, no.12 pp.15.

Susan Helen Adler, "Saidie May Pioneer of Early 20th Century Collecting", United States: Stonehouse Design, 2008, p. 148.

Baltimore Museum of Art. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Celebrating a Museum. Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2014.

Inscribed: Signature: LL, 'Juan Gris '25'