SECTION D'OR

The Section d'or ("Golden Section"), also known as Groupe de Puteaux or Puteaux Group, was a collective of painters, sculptors and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism. Based in the Parisian suburbs of Puteaux and Courbevoie, the group was active from 1911 to around 1914, coming to prominence in the wake of their controversial showing at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1911. This showing by Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay, Henri le Fauconnier and Fernand Léger, created a scandal that brought Cubism to the attention of the general public for the first time. The Salon de la Section d'Or further exposed Cubism to a wider audience. The group seems to have adopted the name Section d'Or to distinguish themselves from the narrower definition of Cubism developed in parallel by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque in the Montmartre quarter of Paris, and to show that Cubism, rather than being an isolated art-form, represented the continuation of a grand tradition (indeed, the golden ratio had fascinated Western intellectuals of diverse interests for at least 2,400 years).

Pablo PICASSO 


Pablo Picasso is born in Malaga on October 25, 1881 the son of the painter and drawing teacher José Ruiz Blasco. He attends the Art Academy La Lonja in Barcelona in 1895, where his father also teaches. Picasso studies at the Madrid Academy in 1897. He travels to Paris in 1900, where he has his first one-man show with Ambroise Vollard. 
Picasso's early work begins with the melancholic pictures of the "Blue Period". The cheerful "Rose Period" follows from 1905 to 1907, a period in which his circus paintings were made. The painting "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" marks the beginning of Cubism in 1907, which Pablo Picasso develops together with Georges Braque and that can be separated into two categories, the "analytical Cubism" and the "synthetic Cubism".
Picasso gets to know Fernande Olivier in 1904. His women also play a big role for his artistic oeuvre, they are his lovers, his models and his muses. Their facial features appear in many of his works. Fernande is followed by the dancer Olga Koklowa, whom he meets while working on designs for Sergej Diaghilew's "Ballets Russes". Around 1917 Picasso was also working as costume andstage designer for Jean Cocteau's ballet "Parade". 
Pablo Picasso's works after 1918 can not be clearly categorized in terms of stylistic terminology, it contains objective-realistic, classicist, symbolistic, surreal and also abstracts elements. The artist takes on what is already there, familiarizes himself with it and breaks new grounds in terms of composition, finding inspiration in his own reality and motifs that surround him.
Picasso meets Marie-Thérèse Walter in 1927, she also becomes his lover and muse at the same time. Besides paintings, a vast graphic oeuvre is created, such as first series of etchings. Picasso makes more and more sculpture as of 1928, as well as mixed media objects with wires and assemblages. 
Picaso executes the large-size painting "Guernica" for the Spanish pavilion at the world exhibition in Paris in 1937, a haunting anti-war painting, which is seen as the key work of art of the 20th century. The photographer Dora Maar, his new lover, captures the painting's creation.
Françoise Gilot enters Picaso's life in 1943. As of 1945 the lithography becomes the predominant graphic technique. Picasso makes objects of utility and pottery objects in the town of Vallauris in South France as of 1947.
He purchases the Castle of Vauvenargues in Provence in 1958, making it a place of retreat for the aging genius. Picasso marriages Jacqueline Roque in 1961. He dies in Mougins on April 8, 1973.
The Museo Picasso is opened in Barcelona as early as in 1963, which gets most of his estate after his death. The Musée Picasso in Paris is opened in 1985.