Alexander ARCHIPENKO (1887-1964) - Lot 45

Alexander ARCHIPENKO (1887-1964) Portrait of Eugenie Marcuson (1882-1972), circa 1920 Plaster bust. Signed "Archipenko" on the front edge. Dim. H. 45 W. 25 D.25 cm. Scratch marks on several planes in parallel striations, some wear to the whitewash, small accidents on the protruding parts, small scratches on the nose, restoration of the right front corner. Provenance: -Commissioned from Archipenko by Monsieur Marcuson in 1920 in Berlin; -By descent Related works: - Alexander Archipenko, Double Portrait (Mr. and Mrs. Falk), 1920, Sculpto-painting, dim. 75 x 50 x 43 cm, Collection of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Gift of the Goeritz Family, London, 1956, in memory of Erich Goeritz. - Alexander Archipenko, The artist's wife, 1922, marble bust, Museum of fine Art, Leipzig; -Alexander Archipenko, Tête feminine (Angelica Archipenko), model created in 1922, bronze with green patina, cast after 1964, dim.53.3 × 16.5 × 20.3 cm, Yale University Art Gallery, no. 1982.107. Bibliography -Die Kunst Monatshefte für freie & angewandte Kunst 24, no. 2 (November 1921), this bust reproduced on p. 45. Related literature: -Archipenko-album, Einführungen von Theodor Däubler und Iwan Goll, mit einer dichtung von Blaise Cendrars, Gustavkiepenheur Verlag, Potsdam 1921; -Archipenko, Catalogue of exhibition and description of Archipentura, The Anderson Galleries, New York, 1928; -Alexander Archipenko, Archipenko Fifty Creative Years 1908-1958, New York, TEKHNE, 1960; - Katherine Jànszky Michaelsen, Archipenko: a study the early works, 1908-1920, New York: Garland Pub, 1977; -Donald Karshan, Archipenko Sculpture, Drawings and Prints, 1908-1963, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky with Indiana University Press, 1985; -Katherine Jànsky Michaelsen, Nehama Guralnik, Alexander Archipenko a Centennial Tribute, Cat. Expo held from November 16, 1986 to February 16, 1987, at the National Gallery of Washington and from March 12 to June 13, 1987 at the Tel Aviv Museum, Museum of art Tel Aviv Edition, 1986; -Anette Barth, Alexander Archipenkos platistiches Oeuvre, 1. T. Seine Bedeutung für die Skulptur des 20. Jahrhunderts unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Lichtplastiken 2. T. Werkverzeichnis Publisher Frankfurt am Main; New York, Peter Lang, Europaïscher Verlag der Wissenchadften, 1997; -Ss dir. Ralph Melcher, Alexander Archipenko, Cat. Expo held October 18, 2008 - January 18, 2009, Saarlandmuseum Saarbrücken, Stiftung Saarländischer Kulturbesitz Saarlandmuseum, 2008, pp.29-32; -Vita Susak , "The Swiss Secrets of Alexander Archipenko", in Harvard Ukrainian Studies, 2019, Vol. 36, No. 3/4 (2019), pp. 415-446. "...In the plastic arts, Archipenko has the same importance as Picasso in pictorial art. Both ventured down the perilous paths of new elements and forms, and both conquered them, becoming figureheads of a great century." Iwan Goll, Archipenko Album, Paris 1921 In 1908, Alexander Archipenko left the Ukraine for Paris and discovered Cubism. He was attracted by the radical formal possibilities of sculpture in this new artistic movement. At the start of the First World War, he settled in Nice, where he developed a unique approach to sculpture, blending elements of Cubism with aspects of Russian Constructivism. This unprecedented synthesis of painting and sculpture, which he called "sculpto-paintings", paved the way for his success. By the early 1920s, he was considered by European critics to be one of the most talented sculptors of his generation. The years 1919-1920, during which he created this bust, marked the beginning of Archipenko's international recognition. In autumn 1919, his one-man touring exhibition opened in Geneva, then Zurich, before stopping off in numerous German cities, including Berlin, Dresden, Wiesbaden, Hanover and Munich. Was it on this occasion that Mr. Marcuson commissioned the bust of his wife Eugénie Marcuson from the artist? Was this couple related to Sally Falk, the Swiss collector who became the artist's main patron and who also commissioned a portrait with his wife? This plaster bust inaugurates a series of portraits of contemporary personalities produced during the 1920s. This portrait of a woman, which emerges from simplified, geometric forms, is a precursor to the many portraits the artist executed of his new wife, the German sculptor Angelica Schmitz (also known as Gela Foster) in the 1920s-1925s. He also painted portraits of celebrities he met, first in Europe and then in the United States: among them, portraits of musicians and conductors Francesco Mendelson, Willem Mengelberg and Wilhelm Fürtwängler, of Dr. Fritz Wichert, the first director of Mannheim's Kunsthalle, of Gela Foster and of Gela Foster.