Cubist blue guitar resting on sheet music on top of a table.

José Gonzales, better known as Juan Gris (1887-1927) was a Spanish born painter who lived and worked in France for the majority of his artist career. He was connected to the innovative artistic genre of Cubism. Gris often referred to his own painting style as “reductive.” He would first apply lines, forms and colors to his canvas. From those seemingly random marks he would determine what the subject matter of his painting would be before adding more details. Like many other Cubist artists, many of Gris’ paintings included musical motifs.