Checkerboard And Playing Cards

Many Cubist artworks depict dice, game boards, and cards interspersed among bottles of liquor, wineglasses, coffee cups, and newspapers. Gris's still lifes are not everyday genre scenes, but rather exercises in distillation and design. The patterned checkerboard was one of Gris's favorite motifs. This gouache is related to a larger painting of the same title in the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.