In which city did Cubism originate?

Cubism originated in Paris, where Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque developed the movement in the first decade of the 20th century.

The city’s Montmartre neighborhood was especially important. Picasso worked at the Bateau-Lavoir, while Braque and other artists circulated through Parisian studios, galleries and salons. Their experiments around 1907–1908 transformed objects into interlocking planes and presented several viewpoints within one image.

Cubism did not emerge from one isolated event or from a single artist. Paul Cézanne’s late paintings, with their simplified geometry and shifting sense of perspective, were a major influence. Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, painted in 1907, is often described as a crucial precursor, while Picasso and Braque jointly developed the mature style.

Paris remained the movement’s main center even as Cubism spread internationally. The 1911 Salon des Indépendants brought the style to a wider public, and artists associated with the Puteaux Group later exhibited nearby in major Cubist shows. Madrid, Rome and Barcelona had important artistic connections, but they are not the canonical birthplace.