Sandra Song

Based on its fancy name with an accent mark, it’s easy to see how someone could mistake “Papier Collé” for an obscure 18th-century French art movement. So it may come as a surprise that Papier Collé is actually the basis of many a D.I.Y. art project — a regular old paper collage.  

That said, there are some tiny, technical distinctions that distinguish “Papier Collé” from other techniques that incorporate different mediums into a single work and, honestly, it gets pretty confusing. And this leads us to our first question…

#### What’s Papier Collé?

Papier Collé is a basic technique using multiple paper cut-outs from different sources and traditional handheld drawing tools (i.e. pencils, ink, and charcoal). The clippings are then rearranged and glued together to form a new image on a single, two-dimensional surface. 

Any type of paper-related material is fair game, including pieces of construction paper, newspaper clippings, magazine articles, advertisements, wood laminate, photographs, diaries, small pieces of wood, and cardboard.

The use of any non-paper materials is an automatic disqualifier. No paint. Period.

#### Who even came up with this idea?

The concept of “Papier Collé” has been around forever, but [Cubist](https://www.cohart.com/news/what-is-cubsim) pioneers Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso are often credited as the “first” to incorporate it into modern art. Because of this, “Papier Collé” is typically associated with Cubism.

Braque is said to have “invented” the technique in 1912 with “[Fruit Dish and Glass](https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/490612)” by pasting cut-outs of imitation oakwood wallpaper onto white paper as the base for his charcoal drawing. Both Braque and Picasso went on to make a number of Papier Collé pieces between 1912 and 1913, though Braque kept going with his imitation wood-grain creations. Meanwhile, Picasso started to use clippings from a daily Parisian newspaper called Le Journal to incorporate elements of “real life” into his works. 

Picasso subsequently invented the 3D collage with 1912’s “[Guitar](https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1088)” by using a technique called “Assemblage.” He’s also believed to be the first artist to use collage within his paintings. 

#### Picasso, huh? But what’s so “avant-garde” about gluing together newspapers?

Like Cubism, Papier Collé was about deconstructing Eurocentric artistic traditions, which mainly relied on naturalistic representations of “reality” on a flat, two-dimensional canvas.

The main difference was that Papier Collé did this by arranging abstract fragments from unrelated sources into a unified image, emphasizing the artificial nature of “recognizable” representation of a subject.

Meanwhile, Cubism examined its subject from multiple perspectives and tried to depict a combination of these observations through the use of three-dimensional cones, spheres, and cubes, resulting in works bearing little resemblance to the original subject.

#### What are some cool examples of Papier Collé?
 
Apart from Braque’s “Fruit Dish and Glass,” another classic Cubist Papier Collé would be Picasso’s “[Tête (Head)](https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/20883).”

Granted, Papier Collé has remained a core staple of modernist art to this day and is particularly useful for sociopolitical commentary, which is evident from its impact on movements like Surrealism and Dadaism.   

Examples of this include Dadaist Hannah Höch’s 1919 protest against the racism and sexism of Weimar Germany in “[Cut with the Dada Kitchen Knife through the Last Weimar Beer-Belly Cultural Epoch in Germany](https://smarthistory.org/hannah-hoch-cut-kitchen-knife-dada-weimar-beer-belly-germany/)” and Kurt Schwitters’ “[Opened By Customs](https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/schwitters-opened-by-customs-t00214),” which he made from newspapers, paper garbage, and customs stamps during the late ‘30s, shortly after being exiled from Nazi Germany.

#### A Picasso is a little out of my price point. Are there any artists on Cohart that also use Papier Collé in their pieces?

Like we said, Papier Collé remains a popular collaging technique to this day, especially amongst artists who want to make a sociocultural or political statements. Right now, we’re obsessed with [Zeren Badar](https://www.cohart.com/u/zerenbadar) juxtapositions of archival prints with modern graphics in pieces like “Spectrum,” as well as the eye-catching neons of [Michael Cutlip](https://www.cohart.com/u/michaelcutlip)’s bold “Hold Tight” and [Otha Davis III](https://www.cohart.com/u/vakseen)’s empowering “Heart on My Sleeve,” which is just one of the artist’s many vibrant creations championing authenticity.


Cohart 101: What is Papier Collé

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