Braque had a special relationship with many artists, writers and poets and illustrated more than 50 books collaborating with 35 different writers of post-war France. Poets often paid tribute to him, including René Char with whom he collaborated many times.

As a printmaker, Braque was less productive than Picasso, particularly after returning home from The Great War with severe injuries. Unlike Picasso, he had little experience in printmaking. Most of his Cubist prints dated from 1911-1912, then he abruptly ceased making prints altogether until 1932 when the Parisian art dealer and publisher Ambrose Vollard commissioned him to create a series of etchings for a publication of Hesiod’s Thegony. The success of this work encouraged Braque to engage in other projects, most of which involved the close collaboration with poets and writers.

In 1921, he began working with publisher Fernand Moulot to make his first color lithograph. Other projects followed in the late 1920s and 1930s. His Oiseaux (bird motif) was first introduced in a series of prints that he made in 1947. The Oiseaux consisted of a single design of a swan which Braque reused many times for posters, paintings and prints through the remainder of his life. The swan in flight was used in his 1958 series titled Août (August), published by Louis Broder, Paris and printed by Aldo Crommelynck. Among his most successful and important series of etchings (printed by Crommelynck), is his series of 12 prints titled L’0rdre des Oiseaux (The Order of Birds), 1962, which was accompanied with text written by Saint-John Perse.

In 1963 Braque produced his last and most ambitious series of prints titled Lettera Amorosa (Love Letters), accompanied by poetry written by Rene Char. The work was published in Geneva by Edwin Engelberts and printed by Fernand Mourlot. The series comprised of 29 color lithographs of which two are tailpieces and one lithograph in black and white as a cover.

The French publisher Fernand Mourlot, in documenting the project wrote: “This work, whose execution lasted several years, greatly interested Braque. Several of the illustrations were redone two or three times and it was not always easy to obtain the bon à tirer (final proof). The majority of the works were done on litho (transfer) paper, applied to a zinc (plate) or (Bavarian) lime stone used for Lithography, then retouched by the artist in his workshop.” The historian and French scholar François Chapon wrote that “The idea of of Lettera amorosa dated back to November 1958 when Braque and Rene Char gave their consent to the publisher and the initial design was worked out. Braque finished the series of lithographs in March, 1963 and exhibited the works at the Université de Paris Bibliothèque Littéraire Jacques Doucet in May, 1963. This was the last exhibition of Braque’s work in his lifetime.

Other important Braque works included in the Glendale exhibition include le tir à l’arc (the archery), a group of six prints created in 1955 and published by Louis Broder in 1960—all of which relate to his Oiseaux motif. Braque’s Oiseaux images became his most sought after works in the print medium with more than a hundred different applications of the bird in flight which Braque explained was due to his primary interest in treating the negative space in his compositions.

Throughout his life, Léger worked on a variety of themes that included acrobats, dancers, cyclists, construction workers, musicians as well as plant and animal forms, mechanical objects and abstract shapes using color and space to express his ideas. Like Braque and Picasso he did not limit himself to painting. Léger explored a vast number of possibilities available to him in painting, sculpture, ceramics, stained glass, mosaic, and the graphic arts. His images were preeminently about modern life and he shared an appreciation for the theater, dance, music and poetry, as well as film.

In many ways, Léger personified the age of illusion. Between the wars, Paris was a magical place, the capital of the world of art. Into it streamed artists, musicians and writers from every continent. Paris was alive with new movements and creative ideas—a stimulating mixture of the avant-garde. With it came a time of change, but also a time of unreality. Machines and factories were creating a new landscape; redolent with power, symbolic of the enslavement they could bring to man. For Léger, he saw the machine as a subject for art.

All of the lithographs by Léger included in this exhibition are from his Les Illuminations, published in 1949, made with the use of pochoir pigment. The images provide a strong cross section of the artists’ overall body of work with design, subject and the use of color. The suite of prints include an image of the late French poet Arthur Rimbaud, using bizarre coloring of orange, yellow and green hues. Léger’s hand colored prints include images of cones and cylinders, plant forms, portraits and words, including four of Rimbaud’s poems.