Group. Plaster Wish ARCHIPENKO EXHIBITION UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE SOCIETE ANONYME INTRODUCTION AND CATALOGUE BY CHRISTIAN BRINTON KINGORE GALLERY NEW YORK 1924 eated Woman. Marble INTRODUCTION ae CHRISTIAN BRINTON I] faut qu'une auvre d'art nous séduise et nous surprenne IKE Euphorion, it is from a fusion of the antique spirit and the spirit of questing modernism—the magic mating of Faust and Helen of Troy—that derives the plastic inspiration of Aleksandr Archipenko. Kiev, the gleaming blue, green, and gold domed city by the Dnyepr, was the birthplace, seven and thirty years since, of the artist whose mission has been courageously to extend the confines of contemporary sculpture. From his father the youthful Aleksandr Porfirievich inherited a taste for abstract research, much preferring the me- chanical and scientific preoccupations of workshop and laboratory to the modelling classes of the local art school. And yet, the earnest, aspiring lad was not fated to follow in the paternal footsteps. Three things turned his energies from science to the richer emotionalism of attistic endeavour. They were the mystic appeal of the great cathedral of Saint Sophia, with its shimmering frescoes in the ancient ikonic manner, the profuse read- ing of Leonid Andreyev and the current symbolist literature of the day, and the revolution of 1905, which left its stain of blood and butchery in the streets of his Geaitve City: An ardent individualist, and dowered with a restless inner dynamism that continually urges him toward fresh conquests, the young man remained but two years in Moscow, and'but two weeks at the Ecole des Beaux- rts, Glis true preceptors were his memories of the luxuriant Slavo-orientalism of his beloved Ukraine, and the Louvre, where he pursued his studies inde- pendently of any specific master. The supreme periods of creative style, Egyptian, Assyrian, pre-Phidian Greek, and early Gothic, were the sovereign sources from which he drew inspiration. Ancient art, which sutvives by reason of its stylistic vitality, taught him to seek, through his own effort, a plastic synthesis in con- sonance with the spirit of his time. And alone in his modest Montparnasse studio, he proceeded to evolve attistic conceptions that became the sensation of a capital ever ready, like the Athenian, for some new thing. At first sympathetically disposed toward cubism, Archi- penko soon renounced a formula that to him seemed doctrinaire and deficient in emotional content. He pre- ferred to pursue his own pathway in fruitful isolation; and, whilst successive appearances at the Independants and the Salon d’Automne disclosed startling changes of theme, manner, and medium, he remained true to the inner logic of his development. He was merely moving toward a purely personal conception of visible form, an abstract, not an inventory, or an imitation of nature. This art is, in brief, what our Teutonic friends term reine Skulptur—a complete, organic plastic entity. His working models derided and even destroyed by his fellow students of the atelier Mercie, lampooned and caricatured in the press by Raoul Ponchon, Leonnec, and ‘Abel Faivre, and his exhibition publicly execrated by the Patriarch of Venice, Aleksandr Archipenko has neverthe- less triumphed in full measure. Twenty-eight Conti- nental museums have honoured his art by purchase, and there have been held since the war alone, sixteen separate exhibitions of his sculpture and painting in as many dif- ferent European cities. The reasons for this spontaneous reaction to the art of Archipenko are not far to seek. They reside chiefly in his aspiring modernism. If the mercurial Marinetti is the literary fugelman of the modern spirit, and the protean Picasso its representative painter, Archipenko occupies a similar position in the province of sculpture. Each in his way is a convinced, and convincing protestant. And that against which this art in particular protests is that fixity of form which is the arch enemy of aesthetic progress. In these marbles, bronzes, terra-cottas, and catved wooden statuettes, in these essays in con- structivism, or negativism, these sculpto-paintings, and drawings in black and white or colour, you sense the ardent, unremitting effort to keep alive that same plastic principle which the creative artist must continually revitalize throughout the ages. The art of Archipenko in its definitive aspects is an art of pure, voluntary abstraction, assuming its own pre- ordained shapes, expressing its own specific concepts. Released from the terrestrial taint of realism and natural- ism, it is sufficient unto itself, a perfect embodiment of plastic absolutism. These slender, rhythmic figures and glowing reliefs live, indeed, in a world wherein the basic elements of line, form, movement, and colour have passed through a process of aesthetic sublimation, and have actually been born anew. Held in equilibrium by logically sustained laws, this art expresses for the first time relativity in the round. And above all is the mystic, stylistic vision of Aleksandr Archipenko essentially modern in aim and appeal. For, in the searching alchemy of his creative consciousness, the boy, Euphorion, has become a gleaming figure of shining sheet metal—the Eiserne Jungfrau. APROPOS OR Monsieur X. to say that he understands a work of art by intuition is about the same thing as though Monsieur X. were to claim that he understands Chinese by intuition. In either case intuition is scarcely sufficient. As to aft, it is more difficult, and requires longer study, than does the learning of Chinese. Art constantly changes in its exterior aspects, is continually adjusting itself to the spirit of the time and the personality of the artist. Because of these changes it is difficult for one century, for one generation even, to comprehend the artistic pro- duction of another century, or another generation. In most European galleries and museums it is possible to acquire a complete art education through being enabled to study, side by side, the works of the older men, and the works of the leaders of the modern movement. In America the role of protector and preceptor of modernism has been successfully assumed by the Societe Anonyme, whose activities are well known and highly esteemed abroad. The sympathies of the Societe Anonyme are ex- clusively educational and idealistic. The Societé devotes its energies to bringing before the public those artists who express the vision and aim of their time in new forms and fresh concepts. America should feel both proud and happy at having in its midst an organization that unselfishly devotes itself to a task at once so practical and so inspirational. RP wa Geile @ GilE, SCULPTURE Seated Torso. Bronze. 1909 Fragment. Bronze. 1909 3 Black Torso. Bronze. 1909 IO EF zs) 16 ys 18 2 2O Stadtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim Repose. Marble. 1909 Stadtisches Museum, Essen White Torso. Marble. 1915 Nationalgalerie, Berlin Standing Torso. Bronze. 1915 Woman Dressing Her Hair. Bronze. 1915 Statuette. Bronze. 1915 Small Vase. Bronze. 1916 Large Vase. Bronze. 1916 Katherine S. Dreier Collection, New York Tanagra Motive. Bronze. 1916 Group. Marble. 1920 I—Stadtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim II—Stadel Museum, Frankfurt Group. Blaster. Aoz1 Grey Torso. Tyrolese Marble. 1921 Man. Bronze. 1921 Woman Bending. Bronze. 1921 I—Osaka Museum, Japan II—Staatsgalerie, Vienna Woman Standing. Bronze. 1921 Booymans Museum, Rotterdam Red Statue. Artificial Stone. 1921 Stadtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim Woman with Folded Arms. Bronze. 1921 Black Statue. Artificial Stone. 1921 21 Seated Woman. Marble. 1922 22 Head. Marble. 1922 23 The Bather. Bronze. 1923 24 Seated Woman. Bronze. 1923 25 Woman Reclining. Plaster. 1923 26 Symmetric Torso. Marble. 1923 27 Statuette. Mahogany. 1923 28 Secretary of StateCharles Evans Hughes. Plaster. ve 29 Senator Medill McCormick. Plaster. 1923 30 Madame Archipenko. Plaster. 1923 SCULPTO-PAINTINGS 31 Still-life. Wood. 1915 32 Leaving the Bath. Wood and Metal. 1915 33, Before the Mirror. Wood and Metal. 1915 ‘34 Red Vase of Flowers on Table. Wood and Papier Mache. 1919 35 Woman and Still-life. Wood and Papier Mache. 1919 36 Woman. Various Metals. 1923 Model of Decorative Panel for Metal Room Lent by the Société Anonyme PAINTINGS 37 Portrait of Madame Archipenko. 1922 38 The Bather. 1922 39 Group I. 1923 40 Group Be 1923 41 Group III. 1923 ETCHINGS AND DRAWINGS 42 Etching I. 1920 43 Etching II. 1920 44-64 Drawings. 1918-1923 Woman Standing. Bronze Booymans Museum, Rotterdam White Torso. Marble Nationalgalerie, Berlin Group. Marble I—Stadtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim II—Stadel Museum, Frankfurt Statuette. Terra-cotta Woman. Decorative Panel. Société Anonyme, New York * a x, a i \ er ; | poh : 4 5 i ; | , é Designed and Printed by REDFIELD-KENDRICK-ODELL Co. ; New York Qe|-B 7285 jada? : ‘ r . ; ' ' . h 9 2 j : v * ‘ Ny \ Eat