ARCHIPENKO a i * ee : eo - Tour of the Exhibition of the Works of ALEXANDER ARCHIPENKO INTRODUCTION BY C. J. BULLIET Gao le Ce cA Gan © New York, MCMXXVII ALEXANDER ARCHIPENKO EXHIBITIONS Archipenko participated in hundreds of collective exhibi- tions in different cities of Europe and America. A great: many of his works are found in museums and private col- lections in many countries. The large individual and retrospective exhibitions of Archipenko have been shown as follows: Hagen Museum, Westphalia 1910 Berlin 1913 Geneva 1919 Zurich Museum 1919 London I919 Venice 1920 Geneva 1921 New York 1921 Berlin . 1921 Wiesbaden Museum 1g21 Hannover 1921 Tour of the Exhibition in the West of the Leipzig Museum Dresden Berlin, National Gallery Frankfort Mannheim Museum Prague Museum New York New York Chicago New Orleans Kansas City Philadelphia United States Denver Museum Los Angeles Museum San Diego Oakland Portland Museum 1927 1927 1927 1927 1927 1922 1922 1922 1923 1923 1902525 1924 1925 1925 1926 1926 1926 After the tour of the exhibition in the West of the United States, Archipenko’s works will be shown in New York, and in 1928 they will be exhibited in the following cities of Europe. Amsterdam Antwerp Rotterdam Berlin La Haye Dresden Brussels Munich Frankfort Mannheim Zurich Paris, etc. Onward. Bronze, 1 925. CONTRODUCTION Archipenko Tp) ODIN introduced into sculpture a surface tingle of flesh that marble through the ages had not known—a heresy. Archi- penko has gone further. He has made his forms live, with an internal fire. Scan a show of his quickly, or turn rapidly through monographs illustrating his work. ‘The striking impression is vitality. Everything is alive—eager, dynamic, flaming upward. That is the essence of his work, its flavor, the distinctive quality that counts. | Archipenko, even now only 39, has been in the eye of the art world for 17 years. He has been the subject of much critical discussion—most of which turns out ultimately to be wrong or partially wrong. Criticism seeks to classify—to pigeon-hole. Archipenko, a volcano of creative genius, inevitably bursts the walls of his classification—splinters to fragments his niche so nicely pre- pared for him in the archives of the savants. “Cubist” he has been called, and is so designated in the already formal histories of the modern art movements. ‘‘Cubist” however, he is not—any more than Picasso, inventor of “Cubism.” He has experimented in the geometrical technique of the most vital art movement of modern times, and has produced ‘“Cubistic” sculp- ture without rival. But Archipenko has passed through the “‘Cubistic’’ experiment, emerging with a power of expression he could have acquired in no other way. “The purely abstract,” he explained to me, “is a delight to the artist and to the few who can appreciate what the artist is striving for. During the past summer, at Woodstock, however, he applied to painting the same strength that he concentrates on his sculpture. Archipenko’s painted nudes throb—every nerve quivers—feverishly they flame upward, like the saints of El Greco. Archipenko may be attaining here the ultimate expression which modern painting, floundering bravely and amazingly about, has been striving for. It is in sculptural forms that Archipenko thinks. The intense fire of his marbles and bronzes, increasing rather than diminish- ing in intensity as he proceeds, is all the more remarkable as the expression of an emotional nature guided and directed by one of the keenest, most analytical minds of the modern art world. Archipenko is the son of an inventor who was mechanical engi- neer at Kiev University, in Ukrania, and has inherited much of his father’s talent for mathematics and his skill in the construction of mechanical devices. His father mapped out for him the career of an engineer, but by the time he was 16, Archipenko had grasped the relationship between mathematics and art, as exemplified in the genius of Leonardo de Vinci. Mathematics, purest and most abstract of the sciences, is nearly universally considered in our day enimical to emotional expres- sion—to painting, sculpture, music, and poetry. ‘The philosophers of old time knew better. Their highest poetic conception, ‘‘the music of the spheres,” was the white hot focus of the intellectually abstract and the emotionally sensuous. In our day, nobody has experienced the quintessence of poetry who has not learned to follow a comet hurtling through the universe on a parabolic curve. Einstein, whether or not he knows what an iambic pentameter can do alongside a hexameter in a Spencerian stanza, deserves rank alongside the great creative poets of all time. Enthusiastic admirers of Archipenko would place him among the mythical dozen who grasp the Einstein theory—perhaps at the head of the list, since Archipenko is credited by them with apply- ing the Einstein theory to statuary—a tremendous feat, seeing how vague and tenuously abstract is the theory. Archipenko, replying to this suggestion, when brought to his attention, observed: “I know that my knowledge of science does not suffice to under- stand the Einstein theory in all its aspects, but its spiritual sub- stance is clear to me. I am convinced that life refracted in the prisms of art opens vistas to us into otherwise inaccessible depths, and when I realized the wisdom of the Creator in the words of Einstein, it seemed to me that I knew all that—perhaps I had seen it in my dreams. “I have a suspicion that the theory of relativity was always hidden in art, but Einstein with his genius has made it concrete with words and units. I am convinced that, thanks to Einstein, one can speak of art as something concrete; I do not speak of works of art, but of the mysterious process of creation. I never have spoken to anyone of this clear awakening of reason and comprehension which the Einstein theory brought forth in me. My invention, ‘Peinture Changeante,’ I owe to the theory of relativity. In spite of my silence on the subject of relativity, there are critics who sense in my crea- tions and the Einstein theory a mysterious and inexplicable analogy.” The ‘Peinture Changeante,’ of which Archipenko speaks, is a most fascinating machine of his invention, in his studio on West Fifty-seventh Street, New York. The observer is shown a screen on which is painted a study in pure abstract form. Archipenko then presses an electric button, and the abstract form begins gradually to change, assuming concrete shape. Then, the trans- formation proceeds through most of the phases of the female body Archipenko has painted and chiseled. If Archipenko derives from Einstein—or from the common fund of philosophy from which Einstein also sprang—he has had inspiration, also, from the empyrean to which Bach harkened when he evolved his mysterious chords. It was an Italian critic who first sensed the Bach analogy. The mystery of this sculptor goes far deeper than marble and chisel. Archipenko, profound emotionally and intellectually, is the fortunate possessor, too, of a skill that enables him to carry out his inspirations deftly and surely in marble or bronze or wood, or on canvas, ‘Though much of his work is beyond the grasp of laymen—even of artists and connoisseurs—so expert is his technique that he has forced into popular appreciation a series of tapering nude female figures, elongated beyond nature, but so exquisitely rounded and so marvelously beautiful as pure form, that even the most ignor- ant in Art are hypnotized into forgetting comparison with bodies of flesh and blood. He has done here, in a great way, with form, what Aubrey Beardsley did, in a lesser way, with line. Few lovers of art fail to grasp now what Beardsley was driving at. The far greater master of line, Matisse, is still a puzzle to the generality. Archi- penko is as profound in sculpture as Matisse is in drawing. Alexander Achipenko is a Ukranian, born at Kiev in 1887. “T come of a people who has no art tradition,” he says of himself. “My ancestors, the same as the Russians, availed themselves in the past of Byzantian and Oriental influences. I like Byzantine and Oriental art, in fact all that is of genius in every country and of all times, and my real tradition is found everywhere—in the genius of human creation. There is no nationality in my crea- tions. In that respect, I am no more Ukranian than I am Chinese. I am no one person.” In 1909, after he had been in Paris for about two years, Archipenko began to develop with assurance the individuality that was to bring him into sharp attention and to start the turmoil that has not ceased and will not cease as long as his creative, inventive powers remain feverishly active. He began to display with the Independents and in the Salon d’Automne. His work was singled out for caustic comment and stormy controversy. Archipenko remained in France—in Paris and Nice—until 19109. Then, he made an extensive tour of the different European coun- tries, with his exhibition. In 1923, he came to New York, where he opened a school, on the same order of the ones he had in Paris and Berlin. His intention is to make America his home. Archipenko displayed constantly in the Independent shows of Paris. But starting in 1912, he exhibited in a big way all over Europe. In 1920 he participated, with much applause, in the In- ternational Exposition in Venice. He enjoyed separate exhibitions in almost all the capitals of Europe, and his work has been pur- chased by twenty-eight continental museums. Since coming to America, he has displayed his work in various cities. Archipenko in each successive work gives evidence of growth— of a vitality vividly alive. The fire of Archipenko’s genius that flames upward in_ his female nudes is burning at a white heat. C. JiBupires (Chicago) W. Mengelberg in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. Bronze, 1926. One exemplary in the collection M. Amsterdam. Group of Two Women. Terra Cotta, 1926. feed. Terra Cotta, 1926. Flat Torso. Gilted Bronze, 1915. One exemplary in the collection I. New York. Spring Torso. Gilted Bronze, 1925. One exemplary in the collection H. New York Young Girl. Bronze, 1926. White Morning Suzanne © Cleopatra Abundance Melancholy Torso Caryatid Toward Another The Dreamer ine slearl Two Women still Life In the Garden 14 15 Mengelberg in the IXth Symphony of Beethoven , Bronze, 1926 One exemplary in the collection M. Amsterdam. Young Girl Bronze, 1926 Salome ~ Terra Cotta Diana Bronze One exemplary in the collection G. New York. The Past—Silver Mask 1926 Group of Two Women Terra Cotta Repose Marble, 1909 One exemplary in Stadtisches Museum, Essen, Germany. The Graceful Movement (concave) Silvered Bronze, 1923 One exemplary in the collection D. New York. Sketch of Movement Terra Cotta The End Terra Cotta Fragment Bronze, 1909 One exemplary in the collection F. Geneva. Leaning Terra Cotte Angelica—Head (Variation 6.) Bronze, 1925 enh 28 a? 30 il Jd 33 34 35 36 37 38 Tangara Motive (concave) Bronze, 1914 Statuette (concave ) Bronze, 1914 One exemplary in the collection I. Tokyo. Woman Dressing Her Hair (concave) Bronze, 1914 One exemplary in the collection I. Tokyo. Sitting Torso Bronze, 1909 One exemplary in the collection N, Tokyo. Glorification of Beauty (concave) Silvered Bronze, 1926 One exemplary in the collection D. New York. The Last Moment of the City of Pompeii Bronze,1925 Feminine Solitude Marble, 1921 One exemplary in the Museum of Mannheim, Germany. Another exemplary in the Museum of Frankfort, Germany. Spring Torso Gilted Bronze, 1925 One exemplary in the collection H. New York. Woman Turning Bronzen i925 One exemplary in the collection R. Bremen. Two Souls Bronze Onward Bronze 1925 Torso Bronze, 1916 One exemplary in National Gallerie, Berlin. Another exemplary in the Art Club, Chicago. Ne: 40 4] 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 Head Marble, 1920 One exemplary in the collection G. New York. Portrait of “Miss E” Gilted Bronze, 1926 Flat Torso Gilted Bronze, 1914 One exemplary in the collection I. New York. Woman Standing Bronze One exemplary in the Museum of Rotterdam, Holland. Kneeling Gilted Bronze, 1925 One exemplary in the collection W. New Orleans. Rape : Bronze Uhegcarl Marble Black Torso Bronze, 1909 One exemplary in the Museum of Mannheim, Germany. Man Bronze, 1922 One exemplary in the collection S$. Berlin. Woman Sitting Bronze, 1923 One exemplary in the collection W. Frankfort. Promenade Bronze, 1925 Two Women Bronze, 1925 Woman Bending Bronze, 1921 One exemplary in the Vienna Museum, and one exemplary in the Museum of Ossaka, Japan. bk Kneeling. One exemplary in the collection W. New Orleans. 1926 Silver, The Past. Angelica. (Variation 6.) Bronze, 1925. Feminine Solitude. One exemplary in the Staedtische Kunshalle, Mannheim Another exemplary in the Staedel Museum, Frankfurt Woman Standing. Bronze, 1921. One exemplary in the Booymans Museum, Rotterdam. Glorification of Beauty. Silvered Bronze, 1925. One exemplary in the collection D. New York. White Torso. Marble, 1916. One exemplary in the National Galerie, Berlin. Another exemplary in the Art Club, Chicago. Statuette. Silvered Bronze, 1923. One exemplary in the collection D. New York. Woman. Decorative Panel in three different metals. Société Anonyme, New York Cleopatra. peer O20 Melancholy The Rape. Bronze. LITERATURE ON THE WORKS OF ALEXANDER ARCHIPENKO ARCHIPENKO MonocrapH—in French, German, Ukran- an, and English by Professor Dr. Hans Hilde- brandt—Berlin, 1923. ARCHIPENKO Monocrapuy—in German—by Dr. Erich Werese, 1923; ARCHIPENKO MonocrapH—in Spanish— Editora Inter- nacional—Buenos Aires. ARCHIPENKO .MonocrapH—by Roland Schacht—Sturm Edition, Berlin. ARCHIPENKO MonocrapH—in French—Broglio Edition Rome, 1922. ARCHIPENKO MonocrapH—by Nicholas Golubetz, Lwow, 2927, ARCHIPENKO ALBpuM—by Theodor Daubler, Iwan Goll, Blaise Cendrars—Edition G. Kiepenheuer, Potsdam, 1921. ALEXANDER ARCHIPENKO—Sturm Bilderbuecher — Berlin, Bees: Numerous books on the History of Art and Encyclopedias. Designed and Printed by GraPuHic Press, INc. New York