The Smoker (Frank Haviland)

The Smoker in the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection was painted at Céret in September 1913. Juan Gris had spent from the beginning of August to the end of October in this town in the French Pyrenees — “The Mecca of Cubism, ” as Kahnweiler called it — where he coincided for a few days with Picasso, a fellow Spaniard and neighbour in the Bateau-Lavoir, whom Gris called “maestro.” According to Christophe…