Francisco BORES (1898-1972) - Still life with three glasses

Oil on canvas. 1928.
Signed and dated upper right: ‘Bores 28’

Dimensions: Height: 8 ¾ in. Width: 10 ½ in.
Frame: Height: 16 ½ in. Width: 18 ½ in.

Provenance: Collection Hélène Bokanowski
By descent

Remarks:

Spanish-born and trained in Cecilio Pla’s studio, Francisco Bores takes part in the first exhibition of the Iberian Artists’ Society in Madrid in June 1925 before coming to Paris the same year. Settled in Montparnasse, he rapidly makes the acquaintance of Picasso and Juan Gris, two artists who will deeply mark his work. During this period, he meets the art dealers Jacques Bernheim and Léonce Rosenberg. His first personal exhibition occurs as soon as 1927 at the Galerie Percier and a glowing article by Tériade follows, published in Cahiers d’art. The painter quickly fits in the Parisian artistic scene. His plastic research put him at the heat of Avant-Garde, making him a genuine figure of the “New School of Paris”. Tériade writes in 1926: “the watchword was to respond to cubism while respecting the aesthetics created by the renowned Scool”. He also sees artists from the Surrealist movement, such as Jean Cocteau, Aragon, André Breton, Paul Éluard or Man Ray. If this “Still life with three glasses” shows a connection to the stylistic research initiated by Picasso or Braque, and if it shows the painter learnt from the cubist “lesson” a certain construction of space and shapes, it is not to the detriment of his own personal research. The artist had indeed integrated, appropriated this “lesson” but frees himself from it and develops a pictorial vocabulary that is his own. It is characterised by a constant play on plans and colours, as well as a representation of the subject that bans all that is superfluous or anecdotal, and which is read apart from any narrative. Some of Francisco Bores’s works are now kept in the Museum of Contemporary art in Madrid