Brief Histories of Undiscovered Art: 1 Suddenism and Piere-Martin le Gris

Pierre-Martin le Gris (1895-1914)

Le Gris grew up the second of four children in Clichy on the outskirts of Paris. His father was a factory worker and collector of scrap metal.

In his early teens, greatly influenced by the Futurist and Cubist movements, Le Gris expressed an interest in pursuing a career in art but his father insisted he become an apprentice at his Uncle's Boulangerie on Avenue de Clichy.

Despite his father's disapproval, Le Gris sought the company of artists and spent much of spare time on the terrace of the cafe Wepler. It was here, along with a group of young like-minded art students that he became obsessed with the idea of Suddenism, an artistic movement he invented and which he claimed moved ten years beyond the art world's avant garde. Suddenism's aim, he said, was to smash past, present and future together so that the act of producing a piece of art coincided exactly with both its being viewed and its destruction. On the night of August 4th 1914, Le Gris set fire to one end of a Wepler napkin and began writing the Suddenist Manifesto at the other amid cheers from his fellow artists.

Le Gris was killed in the first battle of the Marne four weeks later.