Albert Gleizes

French, 1881-1953

L'Homme au hamac (Man in a Hammock)

Albert Gleizes (French, 1881–1953). L'Homme au hamac (Man in a Hammock), 1913. Oil on canvas, 51 1/4 x 61 1/4 inches (130.2 x 155.6 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; General Purchase Funds, 1957 (1957:2). © Estate of Albert Gleizes / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

© Estate of Albert Gleizes / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

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© Estate of Albert Gleizes / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

© Estate of Albert Gleizes / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

Image downloads are for educational use only. For all other purposes, please see our Obtaining and Using Images page.

L'Homme au hamac (Man in a Hammock), 1913

Artwork Details

Collection Highlight

Materials

oil on canvas

Measurements

support: 51 1/4 x 61 1/4 inches (130.18 x 155.58 cm); framed: 56 x 65 3/4 x 2 3/4 inches (142.24 x 167.005 x 6.985 cm)

Collection Buffalo AKG Art Museum

Credit

General Purchase Funds, 1957

Accession ID

1957:2

Unlike Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, who worked on a relatively small scale during the early 1910s, Albert Gleizes, like Jean Metzinger, preferred to develop his complex imagery on a larger scale in bold, vivid colors. Gleizes was primarily interested in portraying the human figure in relationship to the landscape, and in this painting he took this notion a step further by merging the two with elements of the still life. In Man in a Hammock he broke the composition down into several planes plotted along a linear grid. The figure holds a book by poet Alexandre Mercereau (French, 1884–1945), who introduced Cubism to Eastern Europe through a series of exhibitions in Moscow and Prague. Gleizes was familiar with Mercereau’s work and previously collaborated with him and others in the founding the Abbaye de Crétail, a utopian artistic and literary community in a suburb of Paris. The “man in the hammock” is quite possibly a self-portrait.

Label from Picasso: The Artist and His Models, November 5, 2016–February 19, 2017