Tyler Green talks to curator Karen Butler about the exhibition Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928-1945 at the Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, on view through April 21, 2013.

Asked about the prominence of still life in Braque's oeuvre, Butler comments that "for Braque [still life] was a particularly important genre. It was the genre he painted in throughout his career." His specific interest, Butler notes, was the fact that "still life objects were something you could touch. He said he always wanted to evoke 'the tactile, tangible qualities of objects and still life put things in within reach of the hand.' "