Juan Gris (1887-1927)

Gris arrived in Paris in 1906, and took up residence at the Bateau Lavoir, where he met Pablo Picasso, and through him Georges Braque, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Maurice Raynal, Pierre Reverdy and other artists, poets and critics at the forefront of a new generation of Paris’ avant-garde. The present drawing was executed circa 1906-1907, shortly after Gris moved to France. It was published several years later in the Catalan, pro-republican weekly satirical magazine, L’Esquella de la Torratxa, with the following caption: "In modern countries, like the United States, the cars have the right to go at 80 per hour. Here they always think we go too quickly, and we only go at 20. Look how we have to run to get to the Yankees’ level!" (op. cit., 1912, p. 185)