Juan Gris is considered the third major Cubist after Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque.
Born José Victoriano González in Madrid in 1887, Gris moved to Paris in 1906 and joined the international avant-garde around the Bateau-Lavoir. He became close to Picasso, Braque, Guillaume Apollinaire and other artists, but developed a distinctly personal approach rather than simply copying his peers.
Gris began painting seriously in 1911. His early work engaged with Analytical Cubism’s fractured forms and multiple viewpoints, while his later paintings became central examples of Synthetic Cubism. Unlike the often muted palettes of Picasso and Braque, Gris frequently used bright, carefully balanced colors and sharply organized compositions.
The phrase “third major Cubist” is a conventional art-historical shorthand, not an official ranking. Other important Cubists included Fernand Léger, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes and Robert Delaunay, but Gris is the standard answer to this particular formulation.