Papier Collé

Papier collé, a French term for ‘pasted paper’, is a distinctive form of collage that bears a closer resemblance to drawing than to painting.

The term ‘papier collé’ was first used by the cubist painter Georges Braque when he drew on imitation wood-grain paper that had been pasted onto white paper. Both Braque and Pablo Picasso created several papiers collés in the last quarter of 1912 and early 1913. Picasso, in particular, replaced the wood-grain paper favoured by Braque with pages from the newspaper Le Journal as an attempt to introduce elements of everyday life into their artworks.

Picasso further developed the concept of papier collé into a three-dimensional assemblage when he created ‘Guitar’ in 1912.