Gleizes, Albert

(1881-1953)

   painter, theorist

   A leading cubist painter and theorist, Albert Gleizes was born in Paris, where he first painted, under the influence of the impressionists. in 1906, he helped to found the Abbaye Group at Créteil. The works of georges braque and Pablo Picasso, as well as the Portrait de Jouve by Henri Le Fauconnier (1909) caused him to modify his technique; he reduced the volume of simple forms to the prismatic while often still maintaining a realistic treatment of focus (Portrait de Jacques Nayral). Other of his works have a nonfigurative character (Brooklyn Bridge). In 1911, he exhibited at the Salon d'automne in the section called "cubist" and, interested in neoplatonic theories, he attended meetings in the studio of jacques villon and established, in 1912, the Section d'Or with jean metzinger. Gleizes published the first theoretical work on the cubist movement, which is its manifesto, Du Cubisme. After having upheld socialistic and pacifistic ideas, he rediscovered Catholicism and tried to incorporate cubist concepts into traditional religious paintings.