Databáze uměleckých výstav v českých zemích 1820 – 1950

The exhibition of the Ukrainian-born sculptor Alexander Archipenko at the House of Artists (the Rudolfinum) was organized by the Devětsil Art Association, specifically by its intellectual leader, Karel Teige. It was not incidental that Teige chose Archipenko, whom contemporaries described as "the initiator of modern sculpture" [Teige 1923a, p. 56] and who was living in Berlin at the time. The choice reflected not only Teige's engagement with Cubism but also his longstanding interest in Archipenko, whose work he had been following at least since 1917. [Teige 2022, p. 397] The Archipenko exhibition opened on April 24, 1923 at the same venue and almost exactly one year after Devětsil's first collective appearance (the First Spring Exhibition), and six months before the Bazaar of Modern Art. As such, it represented a step toward strengthening Devětsil's international connections.

Rather than reflecting Teige's curatorial vision, Archipenko's Prague exhibition included whatever works the sculptor happened to have in his possession at the time. Teige's correspondence with Artuš Černík [Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature / PNP] and with Archipenko himself [Archive of the National Gallery, fonds Krasoumná jednota] suggests that the exhibition was built primarily around smaller sculptures. Teige initially thought that Černík would be able to bring the works from Berlin by train. "I think that for financial reasons it would be most advantageous if you could make a three-day trip to Berlin and bring the entire exhibition – 15 to 20 small figurines, drawings, watercolours, and unframed photographs – with you as Mitgepäck. It would cost next to nothing." The correspondence between Teige and Archipenko also sheds light on why the photographs accompanying the catalogue do not correspond to the works on display: as Archipenko explained, several of the sculptures depicted were in Paris and therefore unavailable for the exhibition: "Des photos de mes œuvres qui ne seront pas exposées, malheureusement je n'en possède pas ici, toutes sont à Paris et difficile d'avoir."

The works shown at the exhibition – as is evident in contemporary reviews — did not fully match the image of a progressive Cubist artist of the 1910s; instead, they presented Archipenko far more in the artistic register of the period's “return to order.” According to the catalogue, the exhibition featured three sculptural paintings, eighteen bronze, marble, and wooden sculptures and statuettes, as well as a group of watercolours, drawings, and prints. However, the catalogue reproduces the sculpture Médrano Circus, which was included in the Mánes Association's 45th exhibition, Modern Art (1914), alongside several other Archipenko works. Yet, it was not present at his 1923 solo show. In his text for the journal Stavba, Karel Teige states, "Prague has not seen a more significant sculptural show since the Rodin exhibition," while conceding that the selection of works did not meet his expectations. "In the several sculptural paintings, which have brought substantial enrichment to sculpture and painting – just as Archipenko's pre-war mechanical sculptures did (although we missed those in the exhibition) – one can measure the breadth of his restless and rich talent." [Teige 1923a, p. 56]

The format and design of the catalogue, featuring a black disc on the cover, is almost identical to that of the Revoluční sborník Devětsil (Devětsil Revolutionary Anthology), suggesting that the Archipenko exhibition was conceived as an integral part of the group's activities. In his catalogue text, Teige characterized two aspects of Archipenko's art: on the one hand, there were sculptures of "absolute formal purity and lawfulness," in which he saw similarities with Brancusi; on the other, there were works he described as those of a "restless experimenter." [Teige 1923b, p. 9] Archipenko's most important distinction, in Teige's view, lies in his innovative pre-war achievements: " Before the war, he was the only sculptor to have anticipated the need for radical sculptural renewal, applying the results of Picasso's experiments to sculpture and indicating several paths for new development [...]" [Teige 1923b, p. 12].

Although other figures within Devětsil also paid attention to Archipenko, his image in the group's publications was rather ambivalent. Artuš Černík, for example, published an article entitled "Ruská výtvarná práce" (Russian Artistic Work) in the Revoluční sborník Devětsil, the content of which he had discussed in correspondence with Karel Teige. While Černík acknowledges Archipenko's importance in modern sculpture, he also suggests the sculptor's inconsistency ("He is a restless worker who shifts abruptly between styles") and ultimately concludes that Archipenko is overshadowed by other artists.: "Less refinement, more childlike innocence and immediacy, more struggle with matter – that is what the new work demands, and so even this artist will not be vindicated by the age that gave birth to Ossip Zadkine, to the painter Chagall, to the primitivists and to artists who belong more to tomorrow than to today." [Černík 1922, p. 61]

Critic Vladimír Štulc reached similar conclusions in his article "Moderní sochařství ve Francii" (Modern Sculpture in France), subtitled "Několik zaujatých poznámek k obrázkům" (A Few Partisan Notes on the Pictures), published in another key early Devětsil publication, the anthology Život: nové umění, konstrukce, soudobá intelektuelní aktivita (Life: New Art, Construction, Contemporary Intellectual Activity). Three reproductions of sculptures accompany a text according to which "Archipenko was perhaps moving toward pure sculpture, but his path does not lead there." [Štulc 1922, p. 49] Conversely, the journal Veraikon, in the voice of its publisher Emil Pacovský, states in the article "Ruské moderní umění" (Russian Modern Art) that Archipenko "has for many years stood at the forefront of the development of Russian modern art" and that, together with Picasso, "this pair bears today the full weight of modern art and at the same time bears all responsibility for its future development." [Pacovský 1923, p. 34]

One of the most remarkable responses to the exhibition comes from Josef Čapek, whose article in Lidové noviny may reflect a certain resentment on Čapek's part toward Devětsil's activities at the time. In contrast to the earlier works Archipenko had exhibited in Prague nine years prior, Čapek characterizes this show as "a relatively large collection of cabinet sculptures," imbued with "the spirit of a decadent classicism of sorts." [Čapek 1923, p. 7] He describes the sculptor's pre-war output as the expression of "an idiosyncratic eclecticism" that "lent Archipenko more charisma than his present work displays." The drawings fared even worse than the sculptures in Čapek's review: the female nudes "display a kind of perverted classicism, overloaded with physicality and a heavy, dull vitalism [...]." On June 14, the newspaper Československá republika reported on Archipenko's attendance at an "intimate soirée" organized in his honour by Devětsil members at the Hotel Graf to celebrate the end of the exhibition.

Later on, Karel Teige wrote a critical article for the journal Stavba, complaining that state museums and galleries had purchased none of the works on display. However, several pieces did remain in Czechoslovakia through acquisitions for private collections, and two of the purchased marble sculptures — White Torso and Seated Figure — subsequently entered the collection of the National Gallery.

Jakub Hauser

Works Cited

Čapek 1923: [-jč-] = Josef Čapek, Pražské výstavy, Lidové noviny XXXI, 1923, no. 230, 9. 5., p. 7

Černík 1922: Artuš Černík, Ruská výtvarná práce, in: Karel Teige – Jaroslav Seifert (edd.), Revoluční sborník Devětsil, Praha 1922, pp. 51–67

Pacovský 1923: Emil Pacovský, Ruské moderní umění, Veraikon IX, 1923, pp. 25–36

Štulc 1922: Vladimír Štulc, Moderní sochařství ve Francii, in: Jaromír Krejcar (ed.), Život: nové umění, konstrukce, soudobá intelektuelní aktivita, Praha 1922, pp. 47–51

Teige 1923a: Karel Teige, Souborná výstava Alexandra Archipenka, Stavba II, 1923, no. 12, pp. 55–56

Teige 1923b: Karel Teige, Archipenko (exh. cat.), April - June 1923, Dům umělců – Sněmovna, Praha 1923

Teige 2022: Karel Teige, Deníky 1912–1925, Eds. Jan Wiendl – Tereza Sudzinová, Praha 2022

Further Reading

Rea Michalová, Karel Teige: Kapitán avantgardy, Praha 2016

[Ad.T.], Vynikající ukrajinský sochař Archipenko ve slovanské Praze, Lidové noviny XXXI, 1923, no. 515, 14. 10., p. 7

Karel Teige, Alexandr Archipenko, Salon II, 1923, no. 2, pp. 4–5

Karel Teige, Kubismus, orfismus, purismus a neokubismus v dnešní Paříži, Veraikon VIII, 1922, pp. 98–112

Na rozloučenou s A. Archipenkem, Československá republika CCXLIV (IV), 1923, no. 162, 14. 6., p. 6

Skulpturen und Aquarelle von Archipenko, Prager Presse III, 1923, no. 19, 6. 5., illustrated supplement, p. 2

Archival Sources

Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature, Fonds Karel Teige

Literary Archive of the Museum of Czech Literature, Fonds Artur Černík

Archive of the National Gallery in Prague, Fonds Krasoumná jednota [Fine Arts Association]