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Checkerboard and Playing Cards

Juan Gris Spanish
Paris, 1915
Not on view
Many Cubist artworks depict dice, game boards, and cards interspersed among bottles of liquor, wineglasses, coffee cups, and newspapers. Gris’s still lifes are not everyday genre scenes, but rather exercises in distillation and design. The patterned checkerboard was one of Gris’s favorite motifs. This gouache is related to a larger painting of the same title in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Checkerboard and Playing Cards
  • Artist: Juan Gris (Spanish, Madrid 1887–1927 Boulogne-sur-Seine)
  • Date: Paris, 1915
  • Medium: Opaque watercolor, graphite, and resin on cream-colored wove paper, mounted to paperboard
  • Dimensions: 8 1/4 × 11 3/4 in. (21 × 29.8 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Leonard A. Lauder Cubist Collection, Gift of Leonard A. Lauder, 2016
  • Object Number: 2016.237.16
  • Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art

More Artwork

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Costume Design for the Shepherdess, for the Ballet 'Les Tentations de la Bergère, premiered at the Théâtre de Monte Carlo, 1924, Juan Gris Spanish, Watercolor and gouache
Costume Design for the Shepherdess, for the Ballet 'Les Tentations de la Bergère, premiered at the Théâtre de Monte Carlo, 1924
Juan Gris
1923
Au Soleil du Plafond
Multiple artists/makers
1955
Seated Angel (cover design for "L'Humoriste"), Juan Gris Spanish, Opaque watercolor and ink with graphite and pen on board
Seated Angel (cover design for "L'Humoriste")
Juan Gris
1909
Violin and Playing Cards on a Table, Juan Gris Spanish, Oil on canvas
Violin and Playing Cards on a Table
Juan Gris
1913
Violin and Engraving, Juan Gris Spanish, Oil, sand, collage on canvas
Violin and Engraving
Juan Gris
1913

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