Femme au Fauteuil (from series "La Vieille Dame")

Albert Gleizes was one of the leading artists and theoreticians of the Cubist movement. In 1911, with Robert Delaunay, Jean Metzinger, and Fernand Léger, Gleizes participated in the controversial Salle 41 at the Salon des Indépendants, the first formal group exhibition of Cubist painters. Together with these same painters, Gleizes began to frequent the studio of the Villon brothers at Puteaux, outside Paris. In this intellectually stimulating environment, in which discussion of philosophy and of parallels between science and mathematics and the new ‘pure’ painting were common, his approach to a Cubist aesthetic developed. The following year, Gleizes collaborated with Metzinger on Du cubisme, the first theoretical treatise establishing a foundation for Cubism. During that year he was also a founder of the Salon of the Section d’Or or ‘golden section’, the very title of which was intended to draw attention to the mathematical foundations of Cubism and it’s connections to Classical systems of spatial organization. In 1912, Gleizes also exhibited at the Galerie de la Boétie in Paris with other members of the group, including Alexander Archipenko, Roger de La Fresnaye, Metzinger, Juan Gris, Léger, and Louis Marcoussis. In 1913 he took part in an exhibition at Der Sturm gallery in Berlin and shared a show at the Galerie Berthe Weill in Paris with Metzinger and Léger. In February 1913, Gleizes and other artists introduced the new style of painting to an American audience at the Armory Show in New York City.

With the outbreak of World War I, Gleizes re-enlisted in the French army. He was put in charge of organizing entertainment for the troops and as a result was approached by Jean Cocteau to design the set and costumes for the William Shakespeare play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Discharged from the military in the fall of 1915, Gleizes and his new wife, Juliette Roche, the daughter of a prominent and wealthy French statesman, moved to New York City. In 1916 Gleizes showed with Jean Crotti, Marcel Duchamp, and Metzinger at the Montross Gallery in New York.

Selected Museum Collections:
Musée National d’Art Moderne Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Guggenheim Collection, New York; Museo Reina Sofia and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid; Tate Gallery, London; Musée Picasso, Antibes; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen; Harvard University Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; Art Institute of Chicago; Cleveland Museum of Art; Dallas Museum of Art; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon; Musée de Grenoble; Hood Museum of Art, Hanover, NH; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon; Musée des Ursulines, Mâcon; Musée Cantini, Marseille; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Musée Municipal, Menton; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen; Musée d’Art Moderne, Saint-Etienne; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; Musée Greuze, Tournus; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice