The Section d'Or, also known as Groupe de Puteaux or Puteaux Group, was a collective of painters, sculptors, poets and critics associated with Cubism and Orphism. Based in the Parisian suburbs, the group held regular meetings at the home of the Duchamp brothers in Puteaux and at the studio of Albert Gleizes in Courbevoie. Active from 1911 to around 1914, members of the collective came to prominence in the wake of their controversial showing at the Salon des Indépendants in the spring of 1911. This showing by Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Robert Delaunay, Henri le Fauconnier, Fernand Léger and Marie Laurencin, created a scandal that brought Cubism to the attention of the general public for the first time.
Jean Metzinger, 1911-1912, La Femme au Cheval (Woman with a horse), oil on canvas, 162 x 130 cm, Statens Museum for Kunst, National Gallery of Denmark. Published in Apollinaire's 1913 Les Peintres Cubistes; exhibited at the 1912 Salon des Indépendants. Provenance: Jacques Nayral, Niels Bohr
Albert Gleizes, 1911, La Chasse (the Hunt), oil on canvas, 123.2 x 99 cm. Published in L'Intransigeant, 10 October 1911, Les Peintres Cubistes 1913, by G. Apollinaire, and 'Au Salon d'Automne', Revue d'Europe et d'Amérique, Paris, October 1911. Exhibited at the 1911 Salon d'Automne, Valet de Carreau (Jack of Diamonds), Moscow, 1912, and Galerie de la Boétie, Salon de la Section d'Or, Paris, 1912
Special issue dedicated to the Exhibition of the Section d'Or, first year, no.1, 9 October 1912
Albert Gleizes, 1912, Harvest Threshing (Le Dépiquage des Moissons), oil on canvas, 269 x 353 cm, National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related artistic movements in music, literature, and architecture. In Cubist works of art, the subjects are analyzed, broken up, and reassembled in an abstract form—instead of depicting objects from a single perspective, the artist depicts the subject from multiple perspectives to represent the subject in a greater context. Cubism has been considered the most influential art movement of the 20th century. The term cubism is broadly associated with a variety of artworks produced in Paris or near Paris (Puteaux) during the 1910s and throughout the 1920s.
Pablo Picasso, 1910, Girl with a Mandolin (Fanny Tellier), oil on canvas, 100.3 × 73.6 cm, Museum of Modern Art, New York
Pablo Picasso, Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, 1907, considered to be a major step towards the founding of the Cubist movement
Albert Gleizes, L'Homme au Balcon, Man on a Balcony (Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud), 1912, oil on canvas, 195.6 × 114.9 cm (77 × 45 1/4 in.), Philadelphia Museum of Art. Completed the same year that Albert Gleizes co-authored the book Du "Cubisme" with Jean Metzinger. Exhibited at Salon d'Automne, Paris, 1912, Armory show, New York, Chicago, Boston, 1913.
The "Cubists" Dominate Paris' Fall Salon, The New York Times, October 8, 1911. Picasso's 1908 Seated Woman (Meditation) is reproduced along with a photograph of the artist in his studio (upper left). Metzinger's Baigneuses (1908–09) is reproduced top right. Also reproduced are works by Derain, Matisse, Friesz, Herbin, and a photo of Braque.