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Home , 1887 in art, Alberto Magnelli, Alexander Archipenko, Natalia Goncharova, Susak, Wilhelm Lehmbruck

Harvard Ukrainian StudiesSwiss 36, secret no. 3–4s of (2019): archipenko 415–45. 415

The Swiss Secrets of * Vita Susak

“I feel sorry for those who can’t feel the beauty…”

ontemporaries and scholars of Archipenko acknowledge the influence of his ideas on the development of twentieth-century Csculpture. , who met him in in 1911, sixty years later would write, “There is no doubt that Archipenko’s creative work had great resonance in .”1 In 1923, Hans Hildebrand stated, “It is unthinkable that contemporary arts such as and could have entirely separated themselves from naturalism, into whose wide sea all the currents of the 19th century flowed, had the Ukrainian sculptor Archipenko not appeared on the scene.”2 The American scholar Donald Karshan emphasized, “In less than seven years, he introduced to sculpture changes more radical than it had known for many centuries.”3

* Research for this article was conducted during the summer of 2006 and funded by a grant from the Swiss foundation Landis & Gyr. I would like to thank Andreas Meier, Walo Landolf, Hanna Widrig, Christa Kamm, Thomas Rosemann, Urs Ulmann, Lorenz Homberger, Danielle Buyssens, and Anna Susak for their assistance. 1. “Sono certo che la mostra di Archipenko avrà una grande risonanza in Italia.” Gino Severini, “Archipenko,” in Alexander Archipenko, essays by Giovanni Sangiorgi, Gino Severini, and Alexander Archipenko, testimonials by Guilluame Apollinaire et al. (Rome: Ente Premi Roma, 1963), 16. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own. 2. Hans Hildebrandt, preface to Alexander Archipenko/Oleksander Arkhypenko (: Ukrainske slowo, 1923), 5. 3. “En sept ans à peine, il fut subir à la sculpture les changements les plus radicaux qu’elle ait connus depuis plusieurs siècles.” Donald Karchan [Karshan], “Les revolutions d’Alexandre Archipenko: Un vocabulaire qui portait en germe toute la sculpture con- temporaine,” Plaisir de , no. 421 (1974): 12. 416 Susak

The French art historian Françoise Lucbert wrote, “His novel and deeply original concept of sculpture had repercussions all over the world, be it with the Russian constructivists Pevzner, Gabo, and Tatlin; the British sculptors Hepworth and Henry Moore; or in North America, where it was widely disseminated in courses and lectures by Archipenko himself.”4 Such evaluations of Archipenko’s creative work stimulate interest in the artist’s biography, often provoking a mythologization of his life. Certain narratives become entrenched that, while based on fact, over- shadow other lesser-known, brief episodes that were significant for his life and work. The main stages of Archipenko’s biography are well known: 1887–1906—his childhood and youth spent in ; a short-term stay in ; 1908–1920—the French period, the most productive for his creative work and the introduction of new ideas; 1921–1923—a short German period, the beginning of his European fame; and 1923–1964— the American “chapter” that encompassed the latter half of his life and included experiments and pedagogical activity. Before looking more attentively at the events that preceded Archipenko’s European fame, let us turn our attention to his time spent in France and the attitude toward him there. After arriving in Paris in of 1908, Archipenko quickly entered the circle of avant-gardists and soon became a notable member of the group. His first exhibition took place in the Salon des Indépen- dants in 1910, and after 1911 he began to exhibit his works in the Salon d’Automne. He achieved notoriety, but his fame was far from general commendation, and farther still from financial success. A caricature by Georges Léonnec, published in La Vie parisienne, gained popularity and illustrates well the kind of recognition Archipenko achieved. It portrays two French ladies in conversation in front of Archipenko’s Venus (1912) (fig. 1, on next spread), in the Salon des Indépendants. “Do you really think she is the sister of the one in Louvre?” one of them asks. “Yes, but they had different fathers,” the other replies. (—Vrai? Tu crois que c’est la soeur de celle qui est au Louvre? —Oui, mais elles ne sont pas de même père; fig. 2, on next spread). TheGondolier (1914) evoked various associations among Paris critics:

4. “Sa conception inédite et profondément originale de la sculpture eut des pro- longements un peu partout dans le monde, que ce soit chez les constructivistes russes Pevsner, Gabo et Tatline, chez les sculpteurs britanniques Barbara Hepworth et Henry Moore, ou encore en Amérique du Nord où elle fut largement diffusée par les cours et les conférences d’Archipenko lui-même.” F. L. [Françoise Lucbert], “Alexandre Archipenko,” in La Section d’or: 1912, 1920, 1925, by Cécile Debray and Françoise Lucbert (Paris: Éditions Cercle d’Art, 2000), 132. Swiss secrets of archipenko 417

“at once a broom, a tube, the blade of a propeller, a broken street lamp, and the branch of a dead tree.”5 One of the articles about the sculptor’s works had the explicit title “Un scandale.”6 Critics and the general public alike spoke of his work with irony and did not accept it. During his first years in Paris, Archipenko was in dire straits, a detail worth noting when considering the conditions under which he made his most important discoveries. Archipenko established a close friendship with Fernand Léger when they both had studios in . Without a sou in their pockets, they would wander Paris together, from rue de Vaugirard to boulevard de Belleville. Jacques Chapiro remembers that Léger played a musical instrument and Archipenko sang with his “deep and warm” baritone. From time to time, Léopold Survage accompanied him on the guitar.7 In the spring of 1909, Archipenko became a member of the Ukrainian Hromada (Community) in Paris, hoping for their support.8 However, his conservative compatriots, immersed in politics and mostly distant from art, appreciated neither his creative work nor his bohemian behavior. Ievhen Bachyns´kyi, at that time a member of the Hromada, wrote: “I would go to Archipenko’s studio, but I didn’t like his works, they were ugly, and I didn’t want to pay even ten francs for the thing he offered to sell me!…Archipenko was a drunk and amused himself ‘at the bottom’ with Parisian lowlifes. He wandered door-to-door playing the violin, being thrown coins. This was his livelihood, poor wretch.”9 Of course, the opinion of such people meant little to the sculptor. The judgment of Apollinaire, who had noticed his works in the Salon des Indépendants in 1911 (“the sculptor Archipenko, who is talented”), was much more important. Apollinaire defended him after the Salon des Indépendants exhibition in 1914. (“I feel sorry for those who can’t

5. “à la fois un balai, un tube de biberon, une pale d’hélice, un réverbère brisé, une branche de bois mort.” Edouard Helsey, “En toute indépendance au Salon des Indépen- dants,” Le Journal, 2 March 1914. 6. “Un Scandale,” Le Bonnet Rouge, 7 March 1914, 1. 7. Jacques Chapiro, La Ruche (Paris: Flammarion, 1960), 55–56, 100. 8. Ukraïns´ka hromada v Paryzhi (Le Cercle des Oukrainiens à Paris) was an asso- ciation of Ukrainians that existed in Paris from 1909 to 1914 and had within it an arts section. 9. “Я бував в ательє Архипенка, але його твори мені не подобалися, були огидні, і навіть по 10 франків не хотів купити штуку, яку він мені пропонував!… Архипенко був п’яничка і бавився ‘на дні’ паризьких босяків. Ходив по дворах і грав на скрипці, а йому кидали мідяки. Тим і живився бідний.” Notes, 15 May 1910, Archive of Ievhen Bachyns´kyi, Symon Petliura Library, Paris. In his notes Bachyns´kyi mentions that at that time in Paris one could live for 100 francs per month; 1 kg of bread cost 0.40 francs, 1 L of cheap —1 franc, 2 kg of potatoes—0.25 francs, 20 cigarettes—0.75 francs. Figure 1. Alexander Archipenko. Venus. 1912. Plaster. 198.1 cm. Collection untraced. Reproduced from Alexander Archipenko, Sturm Bilderbuch 2 (Berlin: Verlag , 1924), 20. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), . Figure 2. Georges Léonnec. Caricature of Archipenko’s sculpture at the Salon des Indépendants. La Vie parisienne, 30 March 1912. Collection of Bibliothèque nationale de France. 420 Susak feel the beauty and elegance of this gondolier”).10 The French collectors, however, showed no enthusiasm for Archipenko’s works. According to Hungarian sculptor Béni Ferenczy, who was studying in Archipenko’s private studio in 1912–1913, Apollinaire gave a lecture about there in order to attract attention to his friend’s work.11 From 1910 to 1919, only foreign collectors of the “new art” were interested in Archipenko. It was in and not France where his first solo exhi- bitions were organized, where his works of art began to be purchased, and where monographs were written about him.12 His first patron in Germany was Karl Ernst Osthaus. In 1912–1913, he helped Archipenko organize an exhibition (together with ) in Hagen and bought two of his works. His next patron was . In September 1913, Archipenko’s solo exhibition opened in the Der Sturm gallery in Berlin. Apollinaire wrote the catalogue’s foreword at Walden’s request. Walden purchased four and several draw- ings for his private collection. The Italian artist , who was sympathetic to the futurists, bought three of Archipenko’s works (Carrousel [1913], Boxing [1913–1914], and Medrano II [1913]) from the Salon des Indépendants in 1914. At the time, Apollinaire quit his job at the newspaper L’Intransigeant because of the disagreements surrounding these works; today, they belong to the collection of the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The money received from Osthaus, Walden, and Magnelli improved Archipenko’s financial position, but then the war broke out. Archipenko moved from Paris to the south of France with his then female compan- ion, Zeneida Kramaroff. Zeneida’s family periodically wired them money from Kuban. In , the estate manager of a castle that belonged to the wealthy von Dervis family allowed the sculptor to establish a studio in the castle tower. However, Archipenko had to not only work creatively,

10. “et le sculpteur Archipenko, qui a des dons.” “Je plains beaucoup ceux qui ne seraient point sensibles au charme et à l’élegance de ce gondolier.” , Chroniques d’art (1902–1918), ed. L.-C. Breunig (Paris: Gallimard, 1960), 168, 349. See also Natalia Asieieva, “Etiudy mystetstvoznavtsia: Apolliner pro ukraïns´kykh myttsiv,” Khronika 2000, no. 2–3 (1995): 276–86; Ivona Liuba [Iwona Luba], “Arkhypenko, vidkrytyi Apolinerom v ‘kubistychnomu’ Paryzhi,” in Arkhypenko i svitova kul´tura 20-ho stolittia: Konferentsiia (Kyiv: Natsional´nyi Muzei, 2001), 33–37. 11. Béni Ferenczy, Irás és Kép (Budapest, 1961), 26–35, cited in Katherine Jánszky Michaelsen, “Alexander Archipenko, 1887–1964,” in Alexander Archipenko: A Cen- tennial Tribute, by Katherine Jánszky Michaelsen and Nehama Guralnik (Washington: , 1986), 31–32. 12. See Vita Susak, “Aleksandr Arkhipenko—‘pervyi skul´ptor-ekspressionist’?” in Russkii avangard 1910–1920-kh godov i problema ekspressionizma, ed. G. F. Kovalenko (Moscow: Nauka, 2003), 223–36. Swiss secrets of archipenko 421 but sometimes also to make tombstones and copies of the Madonna in order to make a living.13 At the end of 1918, the sculptor parted ways with Zeneida, who soon afterwards married Jean Verdier. Archipenko left some of his works with the newly married couple in Cannes and returned to Paris.14 The next year, 1919, marked the beginning of Archipenko’s world recognition. That autumn, his solo exhibition opened in and then moved on to Zurich. In 1920, Archipenko’s works were exhibited in the at the and then again in Geneva at the Exposition Internationale d’Art Moderne. At the beginning of 1921, Archipenko sent thirty-three of his works by ship to the exhibition at the Société Anonyme in New York.15 At the same time, his touring exhibition visited many German cities (Berlin, Dresden, Wiesbaden, Hannover, and Munich). Such a rapid rise in Archipenko’s exhibition career raises several questions. Not only art historians, but any sculptor might wonder where the usually indigent artist, recently returned to postwar Paris, got the money to transport his works from one country to another, and even to send them overseas. Why were the first cities to hold his individual exhibitions Geneva and Zurich? Why Switzerland?

“Art is for everyone, but not everyone is for art”

In a chronology of the artist’s life and work, the beginning of 1919 is marked with the following notes: “Sally Falk becomes Archipenko’s most important early collector,” and “[the sculptor] meets Christian Schad and his circle in Geneva.”16 Meeting Sally/George Falk (1888–1962) did indeed change Archipenko’s financial circumstances and plans for the future. The research of Suzanne Schiller17 and Nehama Guralnik,18 published in the mid-1980s, has shown that Sally Falk from Mannheim,

13. Volodymyr Popovych, “Arkhypenko u Frantsiï,” Notatky z mystetstva (Philadelphia), no. 17 (1977): 15. 14. The sculptor was able to retrieve his works only in 1960. See “Archipenko Chronol- o g y,” Journal of the 7, no. 2 (1967): 10, 14. 15. Michaelsen, “Alexander Archipenko, 1887–1964,” 49. 16. Alexandra Keiser, “Chronology,” in Alexander Archipenko: Vision and Continuity, curated by Jaroslaw Leshko (New York: The , 2005), 218. 17. Susanne Schiller, “Sally Falks Stiftung von Plastiken an die Mannheimer Kunst­ halle” (master’s thesis, Heidelberg University, 1985). 18. Nehama Guralnik, “The Erich Goeritz Collection of Works by Alexander Archi­ penko at the Tel Aviv Museum,” in Michaelsen and Guralnik, Alexander Archipenko: A Centennial Tribute, 95–142. 422 Susak the patron of the German sculptor , and George Falk, the Swiss collector of Archipenko’s works, are actually the same person. Most of the works acquired by Falk in 1919–1921 now belong to the Tel Aviv Museum. This collection includes thirty sculptures, sculpto-, paintings, and drawings and is the most definitive collection of the early period of Archipenko’s oeuvre to date.19 Falk made his fortune during the First World War, when his textile factories supplied material for uniforms to the German army command. At the same time, he gathered a valuable collection of works by French postimpressionists and modern German painters. Falk met the sculptor Wilhelm Lehmbruck in 1915 and obviously established contact with Archipenko through him. The two sculptors had been friends in Paris since before the war.20 In 1918, when Falk’s enterprises went bankrupt and he was forced to sell his first collection, it contained two sculp- tures and three drawings by Archipenko.21 In May 1919, Sally, already as George Falk, moved to Geneva, where he established a textile factory. After Lehmbruck’s tragic suicide in March 1919, the collector focused his main attention on Archipenko. He probably acquired a number of the artist’s works22 and, following the logic of arts promotion, went on to help organize an Archipenko exhibition in Switzerland and the publication of a catalogue. The fact that the catalogue was published in Geneva before the opening of the exhibition suggests such a sequence of events (see fig. 3, at right).23 There is an inscription “Collection de… Suisse” under four of the seven works reproduced in this catalogue. These works—three sculpto-paintings and one terra-cotta statuette— were the property of George Falk.24 The exhibition was conceived as

19. See Donald H. Karshan, Edna Moshenson, and Marc Scheps, Archipenko, The Early Works: 1910–1921 (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Museum, 1981). At the end of the 1920s Sally/ George Falk had to sell his collection because of financial difficulties. It was acquired by the Berlin art collector Erich Goeritz, who in 1933 ferried Archipenko’s works from Germany to Palestine. From 1933 to 1956 the collection was kept in the depositories of the Tel Aviv Museum. In 1956 the Goeritz family, which lived in London, gifted almost the entire collection to the museum. 20. Guralnik, “The Erich Goeritz Collection,” 107. 21. Roland Dorn, Karoline Hille, and Jochen Kronjäger, eds., Stiftung und Sammlung Sally Falk, Kunst und Dokumentation 11 (Mannheim: Städtlische Kunsthalle, 1994), 155. 22. We cannot exclude the possibility that Falk had also kept some of Archipenko’s works from his first collection. 23. See Art Moderne: Tournée de l’exposition de sculptures, sculpto-peintures, peintures, dessins de Alexandre Archipenko, preface by Maurice Raynal (Geneva: Librarie Kundig, 1919), https://archive.org/details/tournee00arch/mode/2up. 24. In 1997 the first attempt at a catalogue raisonné of Archipenko’s works was pub- lished, the two-volume work by Anette Barth; see Anette Barth, Alexander Archipenkos Swiss secrets of archipenko 423

Figure 3. Cover of catalogue from Archipenko’s exhibitions in Geneva and Zurich, 1919–1920. Image courtesy of Bibliothek des Basler Kunstvereins, Kunsthalle Basel.

a touring exhibition from the start. The dates for the first stops on the tour are listed on the catalogue cover: 24 November–10 December 1919 in Geneva, and 8 January–8 February 1920 in Zurich. The cover goes on to confidently announce, “In 1920: Exhibitions in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Brussels, Athens, Berlin, etc.” Although the touring exhibi- tion did not stop in all of these cities, it did make it to numerous others. The management of the Swiss exhibition project was well thought out. A number of postcards with Archipenko’s works were published from the catalogue plates and distributed during the exhibition (see fig. 4, below).25 The preface to the catalogue was written by the Parisian art plastisches Oeuvre, 2 vols. (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1997). Here and below the identifying number for each work is indicated according to this edition; see ibid., nos. 62, 88, 93, 96. 25. Four cards with reproductions of Archipenko’s works from the Geneva catalogue Figure 4. Alexander Archipenko. Femme dans l’intérieur. 1917. Sculpto- painting (wood). 45.5 x 28.3 x 2.5 cm. Private collection (United Kingdom). Postcard published in Geneva for the exhibition at Librairie Kündig, 1919. Courtesy of the Lviv National Gallery of Arts, Iaroslava Muzyka Fund. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Swiss secrets of archipenko 425 critic Maurice Raynal (1884–1954), an ardent defender of who belonged to the circle of artists situated in the Le Bateau-Lavoir studios and had close contacts with , Аndré Salmon, and Мax Jacob. Raynal’s laudatory, emotional text was preceded by an epigraph by Archipenko: “Art is for everyone, but not everyone is for art” (l’Art est pour tout le monde, mais tout le monde n’est pas pour l’Art). These words contained the sculptor’s retort to his former critics and at the same time an intimation to the Swiss public: failing to understand his work carried the danger of falling into the “not everyone is for art” category. The show was mounted in the exhibition hall of Librairie Kündig, - uated in the central square on the shore of Lake Geneva.26 This location may have been suggested by German painter Christian Schad, who had lived in Geneva during the war. However, the owner of the bookstore, a young man named William Kündig (1893–1951),27 may also have been acquainted with Archipenko personally. Kündig, who would later gain fame as a renowned book connoisseur and expert consultant at book auctions, visited Paris quite often. According to the catalogue, the exhibition in Geneva represented a variety of materials and mediums. Seventeen sculptures (nos. 1а, b–15а, b) were made of plaster, cement, and terra-cotta; eleven sculpto-paintings (nos. 16–23a–d) were made of wood, metal, and glass; there were also three oil paintings (nos. 24–26), five India-ink drawings (nos. 27–31), and several color drawings (nos. 32, 33a, 33b) and pencil drawings (nos. 34–104), mainly of women in various poses. Photos of Archipenko’s works that were not exhibited (nos. 105–22) were also represented.28 The sculptor arrived for the opening of his exhibition and stayed in Geneva for some time, living at the Hotel Suisse on rue de Mont Blanc. It was to this address that the Zurich Kunsthaus sent him a letter, dated 6 December 1919, in which they confirmed their decision to host his exhibition and described the viewing space.29 In January, the Kunsthaus only had space available in are kept in the archive of Iaroslava Muzyka in the Lviv National Gallery of Arts. The artist Iaroslava Muzyka (1894–1973) was one of the leaders of the Association of Inde- pendent Ukrainian Artists (ANUM), active in the 1930s in Lviv; ANUM had planned to publish a book about the sculptor, and Archipenko sent some photos and materials for this purpose to Lviv in the 1930s; see Lviv National Gallery of Arts, Ia. Muzyka Fund, Archive, opys 2, оdynytsia zberezhennia 28 (Archipenko) (hereafter cited as Lviv National Gallery of Arts, Muzyka Fund, op 2., no. 28). 26. The square has been rebuilt and the bookshop no longer exists. 27. See “William Kündig,” Journal de Genève, 30 October 1951; “M. William Kündig,” La Suisse, 31 October 1951. 28. Art moderne, 9–11. 29. Record of exhibitions held at Kunsthaus Zürich, vol. 16 (19 July 1919–17 January 426 Susak their vestibule, otherwise the exhibition would have to wait until March. Archipenko agreed to the first option. The dates of the Zurich exposition were slightly different from the dates indicated in the Geneva catalogue. The exhibition was held from 7 January to 1 February 1920, and the Kunsthaus published its own catalogue for the show.30 The works of Marianne Werefkin, Hans Berger, Paul Bodmer, Hermann Huber, and Reinhold Kündig were exhibited at the same time,31 and there was not enough space on the walls of the vestibule for all of Archipenko’s paintings and photographs. Com- pared to Geneva, the total number of displayed works decreased to sixty-four items. In Zurich, Archipenko exhibited sixteen sculptures and ten sculpto-paintings. After the exhibition in Librairie Kündig, Falk must have kept the sculpture Walking Soldier (1917)32 for himself, since it appears in the Geneva catalogue but is not mentioned in Zurich one. Portrait (no. 23b in the Geneva catalog, date not provided) was missing among the sculpto-paintings; Bather (no. 26) among the paintings. The catalogue indicated the prices at which the works could be purchased by contacting the Kunsthaus secretariat: Archipenko’s plaster and cement works were priced at 1000–1200 Swiss francs; terra-cotta works at 1300; drawings at 200–400, and paintings at 800. Archipenko priced his sculp- to-paintings highest—from 3000 to 6000 Swiss francs. Falk obviously bought some new works after the exhibition: three sculpto-paintings, Woman with Fan (1914), Woman in an Armchair (1918), and Kneeling Woman (1916–1917), as well as two small sculptures, Kneeling Woman (1910), Woman with Umbrella (1913), two plaster statuettes (1914), and the terra-cotta Seated Woman (1912).33 In the Geneva catalogue, the sculptures Kneeling Woman (1910) and Woman with Umbrella (1913) appeared as plaster works, whereas Falk acquired bronze casts.34 We can assume that with the money Archipenko received from the collector, he was able to transfer some of his early works to metal for the first time. Thus, in 1919 the famous Leaning Woman (1911) existed only as gilded plaster; this first version was exhibited in May–June of that year at the Galerie d’art des Editions Georges Crès & Cie in Paris. By 1920

1920), 359–60, Kunsthaus Zürich Archive, Zurich, Switzerland. 30. Kunsthaus Zürich, Ausstellung 7.Jan. bis 1.Febr.1920 (Zurich, 1920). 31. “Ausstellungen im Januar,” Schweizerkunst, no. 1 (1920): 11. 32. See Barth, Archipenkos plastisches Oeuvre, no. 86. 33. See ibid., nos. 54, 94, 84, 17, 49, 55, 58, 29 (in order mentioned). 34. See Karshan, Moshenson, and Scheps, Archipenko, The Early Works, no. 1, Kneeling Woman (bronze on red marble base, 35 cm); Barth, Archipenkos plastisches Oeuvre, no. 49, Woman with Umbrella, 1913 (bronze, 45.7 cm). Swiss secrets of archipenko 427

Figure 5. Alexander Archipenko. Two Women. 1920. Sculpto-painting (mixed media). 177 x 97 cm. Collection of the National Museum in Belgrade. Inv. No. 034_1255. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

this work appeared in bronze at the Venetian Biennale and later made its way into Falk’s collection.35 The sculptor moved from Geneva to Zurich with the exhibition. It was there that he likely made one of his greatest sculpto-paintings, Two women (177 x 97 cm, painted wood and sheet metal), as evidenced by the signature on this work: “A. Archipenko/Zürich, I. 1920” (fig. 5, above). This work became part of the collection of Serbian avant-

35. See Karshan, Moshenson, and Scheps, Archipenko, no. 2, Leaning Woman; Barth, Archipenkos plastisches Oeuvre, no. 26. 428 Susak garde publisher Ljubomir Micić (1895–1971), who published a book about Archipenko in 1923.36 Today this work belongs to the National Museum in Belgrade.37 Archipenko’s stay in Zurich is also testified to by a 7 January 1920 note by Dr. Wartman, the director of the Kunsthaus, regarding three hundred brochures given to the sculptor for resale, in which his address, at the Hotel “Pfauen,” is indicated.38 Newspaper clippings with references to Archipenko’s exhibition are kept in the Kunsthaus archive. that gave birth to the movement observed Archipenko’s formal, colored innovations with interest and did not permit itself to speak ironically of his unusual works. Even the most critically minded author of the notice in Tag fűr Tag welcomed Archipenko: “Herr Alexander Archipenko, ich begrűsse Sie in Zűrich,” regretting only that Archipenko had lost the original naiveté of the “uneducated Russian” and fell under the influence of cub- ism.39 Other reviewers stressed that “the exceptional union of sculpture, joinery [Schreinerarbeit] and paint in Archipenko’s sculpto-paintings deserves utmost attention”40 and emphasized the “spirituality” and “almost mathematical quality”41 of Archipenko’s works, as well as the author’s ability to “organize the volume and the mechanics of move- ment.”42 An “expression of strong artistic temperament” was seen in the drawings.43 The sculpto-paintings attracted the greatest attention. Archipenko had begun creating these art objects before the war and continued to make them during his stay in Nice. Raynal considered these works to have their inspiration in Egyptian bas-reliefs and bright Roman mosaics.44 Later, Karshan would point to a source closer to the native Ukrainian sculptor—the icon. The images of saints on icons, cov- ered with gold and silver settings, must have been a vivid memory for the grandson of an icon painter who had grown up in “Kiev—the center of icons.”45 But Raynal was right as well. Archipenko did not show a preference for any particular national tradition; he absorbed all world traditions and synthesized his own. Karshan emphasizes the

36. See Ljubomir Micić, Archipenko: Plastique Nouvelle (Belgrade: Zenit, 1923). 37. Michaelsen, “Alexander Archipenko, 1887–1964,” 43. 38. Record of exhibitions held at Kunsthaus Zürich, vol. 16, 449. 39. J. Bdn., review of Archipenko’s exhibit, Tag für Tag, 19 January 1920. 40. Unsigned review, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 9 January 1920. 41. “Züricher Kunsthaus,” Luzerner Tagblatt, 19 January 1920. 42. L. J., “Kunsthaus Zürich (I),” Zürcher Theater, Konzert und Fremdenblatt, 17 January 1920. 43. Ibid. 44. Maurice Raynal, preface to Art Moderne, 7 (see note 23 above). 45. Karshan, Moshenson, and Scheps, Archipenko, The Early Works, no. 17. Swiss secrets of archipenko 429 sculptor’s audacity in translating “these obvious cultural roots into not only a secular subject but one of female privacy.”46 Also, Karshan subtly observes that Archipenko had simultaneously entered into a provocative dialogue with the French eighteenth-century tradition of Boucher and Fragonard. From the portrayal of women from the age of Madame de Pompadour on the one hand, to the colorful “fragments” of torsos, arms, and round balls of breasts found on Archipenko’s reliefs on the other—we can hardly imagine a greater contrast. Such presentation of women as a colored stratification of various materials could only appear in the work of an artist with a good sense of humor and a perfect sense of the plastic. The Swiss reviewers noted this as well. One wrote of Archipenko’s knowledge and skill in reproducing essential female qualities (Frauenzimmer), referring to a work from the exhibition titled Femme descendant un escalier, where the woman’s downstairs motion “was seen and reproduced in a most refined way.”47 The popular newspaperNeue Zürcher Zeitung dedicated a series of four essays to the exhibition in the Kunsthaus, the first of which concerned Archipenko. Enlisting his own vivid imagination, the author enthusias- tically described “the abstractions of body forms and movements that look like burning flames.” The critic also took the opportunity to mount a defense of new art and cubism generally:

This exhibition knocks the ground out from under the feet of those who would like to conclude from these unusual works that the author was incapable of doing more. Because among the drawings we encounter such wonderful “normal” works—it would probably be excessive to point out every graphic sheet individually—works of such fullness and beauty of contemplation of form and its treatment, works of such internal passion, as to immediately dispel any thought that subsequent cubist dismemberment and removal of so-called natural truth was the only way out for these talentless lads.48

At the end of his piece he called Archipenko “a sculptor whose excep- tional mastery is beyond all doubt.” Apollinaire was no longer alive when Archipenko finally gained acceptance. His first sojourn in Switzerland was a success. The sculptor returned to Paris with new plans and money. In March 1920, the Section d’Or exhibition opened at the La Boétie gallery. Archipenko was one of its organizers, together with and Léopold Survage. That

46. Ibid. 47. L. J., “Kunsthaus Zürich (I).” 48. “Aus dem Zürcher Kunsthaus (I),” Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 18 January 1920. 430 Susak summer, he exhibited his works in the Russian pavilion at the Ven- ice Biennale, and at the end of the year he returned to Geneva again, where from 26 December 1920 to 25 January 1921 the large Exposition Internationale d‘Art Moderne was held in the Bâtiment électoral.49 Art was presented by country. Among the painters representing were Alexei Jawlensky, , and . Archipenko exhibited his works as a representative of France. He showed twenty-seven (!) works (nos. 7–33 in the exhibition’s cata- logue), whereas Antoine Bourdelle exhibited only ten.50 Falk acquired the second significant part of Archipenko’s works for his collection from this exhibition. The titles of the works in the catalogue let us identify confidently the seven works that became part of Falk’s collec- tion. These are four sculptures: Leaning Woman (1913–1914), Repose (1912), Geometric Figure Seated (1920), and Walking (1918); and three sculpto-paintings: Woman at Her Toilet (1916), Woman (1919/1920), Oval Mirror on Table Reflecting Woman (1917).51 Today five of these works are found in the Tel Aviv Museum; the fate of the sculpto-painting Oval Mirror on Table Reflecting Woman and the terra-cotta­ sculpture Walking (fig. 6, at right) remains unknown.52 During the exposition, the sculptor stayed in Geneva and kept in close contact with Falk and his wife Adèle; he made her portrait-statue Standing Woman (1920, wax on wooden base) and a joint portrait of the couple Double Portrait (1920, sculpto-painting) (fig. 7, below).53 Among the sculpto-paintings exhibited in Geneva, the large-scale Woman (1919/1920, sheet metal; support: oil on burlap on wood panel, 187 х 82 х 13 сm) was particu- larly notable (fig. 8, below). It had earlier been exhibited in Venice and was reproduced in the Geneva catalogue next to Fernand Leger’s The City.54 In a letter written to from Geneva, Archipenko

49. The building has not survived. 50. See Exposition Internationale d’Art Moderne: Peinture, Sculpture, etc. (Genève, 26 décembre 1920–25 janvier 1921), preface by Elie Faure (Geneva, 1920). 51. See Barth, Archipenkos plastisches Oeuvre, nos. 26, 33, 106, 40 (sculptures); nos. 81, 108, 89 (sculpto-paintings). 52. A photograph of the terra-cotta Walking is held at the Lviv Gallery of Arts; on the back there is an inscription in Archipenko’s hand, “Femme marchante 1918. Collection G. Falk, Genève.” See Lviv National Gallery of Arts, Muzyka Fund, op. 2, no. 28. 53. See Barth, Archipenkos plastisches Oeuvre, nos. 109, 104. 54. The archive of Léopolde Survage contains a list of works presented by Section d’Or members at the Geneva exhibition, with prices indicated in Swiss francs. Archipenko’s sculpto-paintings are listed at SF 5,000; by comparison, Fernand Léger’s painting The City was offered at SF 10,000. See Cécile Debray and Françoise Lucbert, La Section d’or: 1912, 1920, 1925 (Paris: Éditions Cercle d’art, 2000), 289–90; citing Fonds Survage, Documentation du Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou. Figure 6. Alexander Archipenko. Walking. 1918. G. Falk Collection. Courtesy of the Lviv National Gallery of Arts, Iaroslava Muzyka Fund. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. 432 Susak

Figure 7. Alexander Archipenko. Double Portrait (Mr. and Mrs. Falk). 1920. Sculpto- painting. 75 x 50 x 43 cm. Collection of the . Gift of the Goeritz Family, London, 1956, in memory of Erich Goeritz. Photography: Tel Aviv Museum of Art. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. proudly mentions that Falk acquired this work.55 By the beginning of 1921, the collector owned the bulk of Archipenko’s works. Taking into consideration that not all of his collection made its way into the Tel Aviv Museum, we can assert that Falk’s collection exceeded thirty works. If we include the five additional works from his first Mannheim collection, it becomes obvious that no other collector or museum acquired as many works by Archipenko. In writing about Falk’s first collection, the journal Das Kunstblatt singled it out as an example of a new generation of collectors.56 Falk participated actively in the lives of artists whose works he collected; such, for example, was the case with Lehmbruck. The collector was also friends with and the expression- poet Theodor Däubler. Having settled in Geneva, Falk maintained his German contacts. It was no accident that Däubler was one of the

55. Archipenko to Marcel Duchamp, Geneva, 16 January 1921, in Michaelsen, “Alex- ander Archipenko, 1887–1964,” 43. 56. , “Erinnerung an eine Sammlung,” Das Kunstblatt 2, no. 8 (1918): 233–41; cited in Guralnik, “The Erich Goeritz Collection,” 102. Figure 8. Alexander Archipenko. Woman. 1919/1920. Sculpto-painting. Collection of the Tel Aviv Museum of Art. Gift of the Goeritz Family, London, 1956, in memory of Erich Goeritz. Photo courtesy of the Lviv National Gallery of Arts, Iaroslava Muzyka Fund. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. There is an inscription made by Archipenko on the left: “‘Жeнщина’. Конструкция. Полированный металл. Скульптура с рефлексами. 1919 [corrected] (6 футов высшины). Reproduction N 52. Коллекція G. Falk. Geneve.” 434 Susak authors of the Potsdam publication about Archipenko, where the works from Falk’s collection were reproduced.57 Although the Swiss exhibitions and purchases represented a success- ful beginning for Archipenko’s popularity in , Europe’s economic and political instability, alongside Archipenko’s hopes for success in America, convinced him to move to the . Several years later Falk was forced to sell his collection and moved to France, to Marseilles. Archipenko did not find out until 1947 that the works from Falk’s collection had survived and were held in Tel Aviv. This collection was to become an important factor in the argument concerning the dating of Archipenko’s works, unfortunately only after his death. Archipenko would not visit Switzerland for a third time until forty years later. His personal exhibition took place in the Galerie “Im Erker” in St. Gallen (17 November 1962–10 January 1963), a year before his death (see figs. 9 and 10, at right.)58 Only bronze sculptures (nos. 1–30) and drawings (nos. 1–73) were exhibited. The sculptures represented the main stages of his artistic innovations from 1909 to 1961.59 The Galerie “Im Erker” existed until 2015, had its own publishing house, and invited famous artists, giving them the opportunity to use its studio space and printing press. Archipenko came to St. Gallen with his second wife, Francis Archipenko-Gray, and during the time of the exhibition he made his last series of lithographs, Les formes vivantes (Living Forms), which consisted of ten sheets of images of abstract forms.60 The exhi- bition garnered positive reviews in the Swiss and German press. The Ukrainian newspaper in Munich, Shliakh Peremohy, carried an article by Ivan Kurakh titled “He Doesn’t Need Advertising.” The author wrote: “When we asked the director of the gallery if there were many visitors, he replied with a satisfied smile, ‘I think that all the inhabitants of our city were here, and then there were art lovers and collectors from all of Switzerland and even from abroad. Those who couldn’t come inquired about his works by phone; some even bought his works by telephone.’”61 All the works from the exhibition were sold. Switzerland became the country that embraced and supported the artist at the beginning of his career and paid fitting tribute to his art at the end of Archipenko’s life.

57. Theodor Däubler and Iwan Goll, Archipenko-Album, with a poem by Blaise Cen- drars (Potsdam: Gustav Kiepenheuer Verlag, 1921). 58. Alexander Archipenko: 17. November 1962 bis 10. Januar 1963; Galerie “Im Erker,” exh. cat., introduction by Werner Hofmann (St. Gallen, 1962). 59. The bronze casts were made by Archipenko in the early 1960s. 60. Alexander Archipenko: Les formes vivantes, 10 lithografies originales (St. Gallen: Erker-Presse, 1963). (Tirage: 75 exemplaires.) 61. Ivan Kurakh, “Vin ne potrebuie rekliamy,” Shliakh peremohy, 27 January 1963. Figure 9. Alexander Archipenko at the entrance to the “Im Erker” Gallery. St. Gallen, 1962. Reproduced from the catalogue of the exhibition.

Figure 10. Poster of Archipenko’s exhibition in the “Im Erker” Gallery. St. Gallen. 1962–1963. Reproduced from the catalogue of the exhibition. 436 Susak

Hero and Bather

In 1929 a solo exhibition of was held in the Tretyakov Gallery, which looked back at the thirty years of his artistic work. Male­ vich decided to construct a precise schema of his creative development for this exhibition—from to —and painted the necessary link-paintings, freely dating them to earlier years.62 Art historians managed to uncover this mystification only at the end of that century. The beginning of the twentieth century was a time when the criterion of novelty in the evaluation of artwork was paramount, and being the first to introduce a new concept became the object of strong competition among avant-gardists. Of course, Archipenko knew nothing about this “first curatorial project” that Malevich conducted on himself.63 In 1936, Alfred H. Barr, director of the Museum of in New York, invited Archipenko to take part in the large exhibition Cubism and . Archipenko found himself in an even more difficult situation than Malevich. His most important early works had been left in Europe, some of them no longer existed,64 all while he was being offered a large retrospective exhibition and with it a chance to “enter history” and secure authorship of his innovations. The inventions and innovations were there, but the proof was not. For a man who was a creative inventor at heart, this must have seemed especially unfair. The sculptor sent five works to the exhibition, dating them between 1910 and 1915. Four of them (including Hero) were recent recreations in the original terra-cotta, produced with the aid of memory and photographs. Archipenko soon had to acknowledge this in his correspondence with the museum director: “The others are the replicas of the old statues. All the first original pieces are in private collections. Those which I have sent you are also originals because every one was sculpted individually and was not reproduced from a mold.”65 Barr exhibited these works, paying tribute to the sculptor’s merits, but refused to give Archipenko a personal exhibition, which the latter wanted to hold in 1937, for his fiftieth birthday. In the 1940s they continued their emotionally charged discussion, which did not go in Archipenko’s favor. The sculptor at first called his later renditions replicas, then versions. In the middle of the

62. See Elena Basner, “Zhivopis´ Malevicha iz sobraniia Russkogo muzeia,” in Kazimir Malevich v Russkom muzee (St. Petersburg: State Russian Museum, 2000), 15–27. 63. Alexandra Shatskikh, “Malevich—kurator Malevicha,” in Russkii avangard: Problemy reprezentatsii i interpretatsii (St. Petersburg: State Russian Museum, 2000), 149–54. 64. During the First World War most of the works left by Archipenko in his Paris studio were destroyed because of the poor conditions in which they were kept. 65. See Michaelsen, “Alexander Archipenko, 1887–1964,” 75–93; quotation 75–76. Swiss secrets of archipenko 437

Figure 11. Alexander Archipenko. Hero. 1913. Bronze. Kunsthaus Zug, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm. Photo: Vita Susak. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

1950s and at the beginning of the 1960s he made bronze versions of his early works, continuing to date them in the 1910s—the years in which the idea appeared. The dating issue resurfaced again when I unexpectedly saw the famous Hero in the fonds of the Kunsthaus of the small Swiss town of Zug. The Barth catalogue lists only a terra-cotta Hero, gilded and toned with black (height 104 сm).66 Archipenko made it in 1935 for the Barr exhibition in New York and then in 1955–1956 brought it with his touring exhibition to Germany, where he presented it to the Landesmu- seum in Darmstadt. The Kunsthaus in Zug, however, possesses a bronze Hero, on a base of black marble with white veining (57.5 x 31 x 21 cm with base, with Archipenko’s signature in white paint on the back), as part of the museum’s Kamm collection (fig. 11, above).67 According to the catalogue of the collection, this work was acquired at an auction in Stuttgart in 1955 by the Galerie Würthle, Vienna, from which it entered the Kamm collection. In 1962 this Hero was exhibited in Germany at The 1920s in Hannover exhibition.68 The catalogue of the Stuttgart auction

66. Barth, Archipenkos plastisches Oeuvre, no. 45. 67. Matthias Haldemann, ed., Dialog mit der Moderne: Fritz Wotruba und die Samm­ lung Kamm; Katalog der Stiftung Sammlung Kamm (Zug: Kunsthaus Zug, 1998), 214, catalogue item no. 1. 68. See Die Zwanziger Jahre in Hannover: Bildende Kunst, Literatur, Theater, Tanz, Architektur, 1916–1933 (Hannover, 1962), 77, ill. C 12 (Alexander Archipenko, Heros, etwa 1910…Galerie Würthle, Wien); see also Dietrich Helms, “The 1920s in Hannover,” 438 Susak

Figure 12. Alexander Archipenko. Hero (1910?–1913). Illustration from the journal Das Kunstblatt 1, no. 9 (1917): 263. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. indicates that this sculpture comes from the collection of Herbert von Garvens-Garvensburg, Hannover/Bornholm.69 Archipenko dated the creation of his Hero as 1910. Art historians are inclined to date it to 1913, taking into consideration the stylistic manner as well as the catalogue of the Berlin exposition at the Der Sturm gallery in 1914, where it was described as “Nr. 19, Heros, Gips vergoldet, 1913.”70 In 1910–1913 Archipenko simply didn’t have enough money for such an expensive bronze cast. Obviously, Herbert von Garvens-­Garvensburg had acquired a plaster work. It was reproduced in 1917 in the journal Das Kunstblatt as one of the illustrations for the article about Garvens-Garvensburg’s collection.71 The same illustration appears in the Potsdam monograph about Archipenko, published in 1921.72 On both reproductions, we can see losses on the leg and the base, which clearly indicate that this is not bronze (fig. 12, above). The

Art Journal 22, no. 3 (Spring 1963): 140, fig. 1 (photo from exhibition that shows Archipenko’s sculpture). 69. Stuttgarter Kunstkabinett: 22. Kunst-Auktion, 29. November 1955 (Stuttgart, 1955), no. 713 [p. 66], plate 61 (Alexander Archipenko, Heros, Bronzeplastik). 70. See Barth, Archipenkos plastisches Oeuvre, no. 45. 71. Paul Erich Küppers, “Sammlung Herbert von Garvens-Garvensburg in Hannover,” Das Kunstblatt 1, no. 9 (1917): 263. 72. Däubler and Goll, Archipenko-Album, ill. 11. Swiss secrets of archipenko 439

Figure 13a. Alexander Archipenko. Figure 13b. Inscription, in Hero. Courtesy of the Lviv National Archipenko’s hand, on reverse side Gallery of Arts, Iaroslava Muzyka of photograph. Fund. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. losses, noticeable even on the reproductions, illustrate the urgency of transferring the Hero into a hard material. This was probably done at the request of Garvens-Garvensburg in 1921–1923, when Archipenko lived in Germany. Evidence to support this version of events is the photo of the Hero that was sent to Lviv in the 1930s (see figs. 13a–b, above).73 On the back of the photo there is an inscription made by Archipenko: “1910. L’Heros. Bronze doré. Collection H. von Garvens-Garvensburg.” On the one hand, this confirms the existence of a bronze cast already in the 1930s; on the other, Archipenko writes bronze doré (gilded bronze), whereas the Hero in the Zug Kunsthaus is bronze alone. In addition, the marble base in the Lviv photo and that of the figure from Zug are different (the first one has no white veining). These observations suggest that there were probably two casts.

73. Lviv National Gallery of Arts, Muzyka Fund, op. 2, no. 28. 440 Susak

Taking into consideration that the dimensions of the Hero are not indicated on the Lviv photo, we cannot exclude the possibility that the Zug Hero was cast after the Second World War. Katherine Jánszky Michaelsen states that beginning in the 1950s, Archipenko remade approximately thirty of his early works in bronze.74 It should also be noted that in June 1955, Archipenko visited Europe after a thirty-year absence. His touring exhibition began in Darmstadt on 5 June 1955 and lasted until 1956 (Mannheim, Recklinghausen, Düsseldorf, Berlin).75 The Zug Hero appeared at the auction in Stuttgart in November 1955. The fate of the plaster original remains unknown. Of course, every author has the right to date his work with the year of the conception of the idea. However, any idea, when materialized, takes on the imprint of the time when this occurs. For example, the first, plaster Hero (1910?–1913), created in the cubist epoch, couldn’t have curved in such a “manneristic” way as the fluid bronze form that is kept in the Zug Kunsthaus (fig. 14, at right). The Hero of the 1910s is a paraphrase of a Cycladic idol, which the sculptor charged with an avant- garde dynamic. It is related to the language of other Archipenko works of that time: Sketch for Ceiling (1913, Tel Aviv Museum) and Red (1912–1913, location unknown). The transition from distinct geometric silhouettes to smooth supple lines occurred in Archipenko’s work at the beginning of the 1920s (see Figure, 1921, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York), and it influenced Archipenko’s reinterpretation of his own early works. Given the problems with dating, every embodiment of Archipen- ko’s idea that has survived in its initial form has a special value. The sculpto-painting Standing Woman (1912?/1919), possibly one of the works exhibited in Geneva in 1920–1921, is today located in the Bern Kunstmuseum (Stiftung Anne-Marie and Victor Loeb).76 The true rarity is Bather (1912, cast stone, 102 x 32 cm with base),77 acquired by Walden for his collection and today held in the storeroom of the Kunsthaus in

74. Michaelsen, “Alexander Archipenko, 1887–1964,” 77. 75. Alexander Archipenko: Plastik, Malerei, Zeichnungen, Druckgraphik [Wanderaus­ stellung; Darmstadt, 5 Juni–21 August 1955] (Darmstadt: Hessisches Landesmuseum, 1955). 76. See Barth, Archipenkos plastisches Oeuvre, no. 100; Marianne Schmidt and Johannes Gachnang, eds., Stiftung Anne-Marie und Victor Loeb [catalogue] (Bern: Kunsthalle, 1978), frontispiece (Alexander Archipenko [Kat. Nr. 6]), with description on p. 67 (no. 6. Ohne Titel, 1912. Relief, Holz und Metall bemalt. 46.5 x 37 x 3 cm. Bez. u. r. Archipenko. Paris). 77. Barth, Archipenkos plastisches Oeuvre, no. 32. Erroneously described as held at the Museum Bellerive. Swiss secrets of archipenko 441

Figure 14. Alexander Archipenko. Hero. 1913. Bronze. Side view. Kunsthaus Zug, Stiftung Sammlung Kamm. Photo: Vita Susak. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

Zurich, where it was placed for temporary safekeeping. It is the property of the Museum Rietberg in Zürich, received by the museum prior to 1964 as a gift from Eduard von der Heydt. In 1923, Erich Wiese placed an image of this sculpture at the beginning of his essay on Archipenko in the art series Junge Kunst, indicating that Badende/Bather was part of Herwarth Walden’s collection.78 This is further confirmed by Archipen- ko’s inscription on the photo kept in the Iaroslava Muzyka archive at the Lviv National Gallery of Arts (figs. 15a–b, below): “1910. Baigneuse. Pierre. Collection H. Walden. Berlin.”79 The Bather is emblematic of this stage in the artist’s oeuvre. Archi­ penko, along with Brancusi, was among the first to understand the value of physical material in and of itself and began experimentation in this area of sculptural problems. Without trying to imitate Rodin in any way, Archipenko nonetheless appropriated from the French sculptor the idea that a fragment can be a complete work.80 His early sculptures reminded Sviatoslav Hordyns´kyi of the “idols which once adorned

78. Erich Wiese, Alexander Archipenko, Junge Kunst 40 (Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Bier- mann, 1923). 79. Lviv National Gallery of Arts, Muzyka Fund, op. 2, no. 28. 80. Michaelsen, “Alexander Archipenko, 1887–1964,” 20–21. Figure 15a. Alexander Archipenko. Bather. 1912. Collection of H. Walden. Courtesy of the Lviv National Gallery of Arts, Iaroslava Muzyka Fund. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Swiss secrets of archipenko 443

Figure 15b. Inscription, in Archipenko’s hand, on reverse side of photograph. the barrows of the Ukrainian steppes.” In Archipenko’s hands these archaic idols came to life and began to move: “strongly anti-realistic, shaped in rude blocks of geometrically composed forms. From there it was only one step to Cubism, of which Archipenko was one of the principal creators.”81 In the depository of the Kunsthaus in Zurich, the Bather was placed by absolute chance next to a nineteenth-century marble sculpture. The marble girl has even closed her eyes so as not to see this distorted female body with no face, hands, or legs (fig. 16, next page). This juxtaposition, caught in the frame of a snapshot, provides a surprisingly expressive illustration of Hildebrandt’s words cited at the beginning of this essay, about Archipenko’s importance in the rupture with naturalism, “into whose wide sea all the currents of the 19th century flowed.” The radi- calism and courage of the Ukrainian sculptor, which so influenced the development of twentieth-century sculpture, are all the more evident in this image.

81. Sviatoslav Hordynsky, “Archipenko,” in Alexander Archipenko: Fifty Creative Years, 1908–1958, by Alexander Archipenko (New York: TEKHNE, 1960), 1. Figure 16. Alexander Archipenko. Bather. 1912. Cast stone. 102 x 32 cm with base. Collection of the Museum Rietberg, now at the Kunsthaus Zurich. Photo: Vita Susak. © 2019 Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Swiss secrets of archipenko 445

* * *

Switzerland is traditionally perceived as a country where treasures are kept. In some sense it has played the role of guardian in the case of Archipenko’s works. The collection assembled here by Sally/George Falk is a valuable trove that now represents Archipenko’s early work in the Tel Aviv Museum. It is supplemented by the Zurich Bather from the Walden collection and by the sculpto-painting from the Bern Kunst­ museum. It is not known how many more Archipenko drawings and bronze casts are in private Swiss collections, but the passing of time only adds to their special value.