Braque was born in 1882 near Argenteuil in France. (Picasso was a year older). As a small child, Braque's parents moved to Le Havre where he began his training in the local art school as an apprentice to a decorator/painter. Later, he moved to Paris and enrolled in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. During this period, he met and made friends with artist such as Henri Mattise and Raoul Dufy, both of whom influenced his becoming part of the Fauve circle. It was shortly thereafter that he met Picasso. Though eventually overshadowed by his new "partner in crime", at that time, both men were relatively unknown artists, struggling to make a name for themselves along with a few Francs for bread and wine.
Port in Normandy bears the hallmark of Cubism, but is not as well-developed as the Cubist still-lifes Braque did just a few months later or those of Picasso, who, unlike Braque, also explored portraits in his ongoing studies. Braque's work tends to be cooler in color and a little more refined that that of Picasso though often their work is all but indistinguishable. Art historians have even suggested that in working together, side by side in the same studio, they may even have worked on one another's paintings. After the two men drifted apart, their work became more distinctive. Picasso's painted forms began to flatten and simplify, ushering in the synthetic phase of the movement while the work of Braque tended more toward abstract expressionism. Braque died in Paris in 1963 having shared some of the fame, but little of the notoriety of his former associate. He was 81.