Juan Gris, original name José Victoriano González (1887-1927), Spanish painter whose lucidly composed still lifes are major works of the style called Synthetic Cubism.
Gris studied engineering at the Madrid School of Arts and Manufactures from 1902-1904, but he soon began making drawings for newspapers in the sensuously curvilinear Art Nouveau style.
He moved to Paris in 1906 and settled at the Bateau-Lavoir, an artists’ dwelling where his compatriot Pablo Picasso lived. Gris was thus in touch with the evolution of Cubism, a style initiated by Picasso and Georges Braque around 1907.