Numberthirty 1964 JEAN LURCAT AUCKLAND CITY ART GALLERY QUARTERLY NUMBER THIRTY— 1964
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NumberThirty 1964 JEAN LURCAT AUCKLAND CITY ART GALLERY QUARTERLY NUMBER THIRTY— 1964 EDITORIAL dreams'. Surrealism had a considerable influ- Attendance Figures: Attendance figures are of- ence on his work. He has never given up paint- ten considered with mixed feelings. They give ing: nevertheless his most significant and im- no indication of the quality of the subject portant work is in the field of tapestry. viewed, nor that of the viewers. Often, two 'The acceptance of the authority of the exhibitions of equal quality will draw totally painter', that is, the acceptance of the easel different attendances. With these qualifications painting as the pre-eminently acceptable (and in mind, it is still very gratifying to note that saleable) work of art, coupled with the refusal for the first six months of this year, the attend- of too many tapestry — works' directors to be- ance was 58,748, while for the same months of lieve in the worth of a contemporary style, 1964 it was 35,565 —an increase of 23,183. No had, by 1937, sadly reduced the ranks of the outsize exhibition attendance is the cause of Aubusson weavers, making the situation of this this increase, but an overall improvement in local industry almost disastrous. daily attendances. This encouraging swelling In 1939, Lurcat, Dubreuil and Gromaire of numbers reflects the general blossoming of were invited to Aubusson to work with the the visual arts in Auckland over the last two local weavers, to create and supervise a large years —in the auctions, the dealer galleries, series of tapestries. Our Le Venetien, probably and the sales experienced by artists. made about 1950, is an example of the close JEAN LURCAT (b 1882— ) French collaboration between painter and weaver, and, LE VENETIAN (cover) along with many other works, justifies the faith Aubusson tapestry 84 x 94 inches of Francois Tabard, director of the firm who Signed — Lurcat (woven) lower right, Jean first arranged this collaboration. Lurcat (label) verso On the subject of our tapestry, a recurring Presented by the New Zealand Government, one in Lurcat's work, he has written: 'On one 1964, from the French Cultural Fund. of those resplendent mornings in the Lot region Lurcat first became interested in tapestry in .... I saw in the meadow next to my studio, a 1915. It is to him that we are indebted for the cock .... The bird was overwhelmingly proud. revival of twentieth-century French tapestry- The sun enveloped him, polished up his breast, making. made it shine, in fact made him a sort of red Lurcat studied painting in Nancy in the God, a pharos, a phael ic symbol an astrahackle studio of Victor Prouve, coming to Paris in .... An image presents itself — a King! Ver- 1918 to study under Bernard Naudin. Mobil- sailles — the great monarch — the Roi Soliel! ised in 1914 he wrote anti-militaristic poems Hadn't I here the new poetic substance for a and articles, and was sent to prison. After the tapestry? I had it there in my hand, under my war he travelled in Spain and the Sahara skin and in the germ! All that had to be done Desert. His paintings reflect these countries: after that was to translate it into plastic form.' 'large landscapes with a feeling for space and C.McC. page two MAURICE DENIS 1870-1943 French became the spiritual leader of the group, which LE PORT DE PECQ (1896) also included Bonnard and Vuillard. Oil on canvas 12i x 18| inches Denis was a prolific artist — as painter, Signed and dated Maurice Denis — 96 muralist, and book illustrator (notably of Ver- laine's Sagesse) —and, with his intellectual Maurice Denis was born at Granville and, after tastes, a well-informed, intelligent writer of a brilliant career at the Lycee Condorcet, stud- criticism. His widely repeated dictum: 'one ied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts for a short must recall that a picture, before it becomes time. He was attending classes at the 'Acad- a war horse, a naked woman, or some anecdote emie Julian' in 1888 when Paul Serusier re- is essentially a flat surface covered with colours turned from a stay in Brittany, where, in com- assembled in a certain order', is indicative of pany with his fellow art student Emile Bern- an earlier, and shared, approach — though it ard, he had been painting with Gauguin. The cannot be said that the subject plays an alto- revolutionary ideas developed here by this gether subordinate part in Denis' work: he group —the doctrines of 'synthesism' and was never an abstract painter in any radical 'symbolism' in painting — were communicated sense. to Denis and his friends, who were fired by the Le Port de Pecq was painted in 1896, the new revelation. year after a trip to Florence, where Denis' In 1892 therefore, a circle of painters was study of the Italian primitive masters had a founded which called itself by the private name classicizing influence on his work. He was later of the Nabis (the 'prophets', the 'inspired'), to renounce the Art Nouveau, disgusted with and were to be known variously as Cloissonists, the mass reproduction and vulgarization of its Synthetists and Symbolists &c.: Denis rapidly best ideas. R.D.F. page three ALEXANDRE ARCHIPENKO 1887-1964 French GONDOLIER (1914) Bronze 33 inches Signed Archipenko 1914 Ed. 4/12 The Mackelvie Collection (1963) This work is a reduced replica of the large figure (h.66 inches; Perls Gallery, New York). When Archipenko made his work he was closely associated with Brancusi and Duchamp- Villon in finding a more formal treatment of sculpture. Both he and Duchamp-Villon were influenced by the Futurists; and in fact, Boccioni held an exhibition in Paris in June 1913. Golding (Cubism, Faber & Faber, 1959, p.170) makes the point that Duchamp-Villon's The Horse (1914) (Museum of "Modern Art, N.Y.) showed strong Futurist characteristics. We can therefore, both in subject and style, link the Gondolier with this same year. The articulation and forms of both Gondolier and Duchamp-Villon's Seated Woman are strongly reminiscent of an artist's lay figure, which per- haps suggested to both artists a link between human and machine — anticipating the tailor's OSSIP ZADKINE b 189 French dummy motif of the Italian Metaphysical WOMAN WITH A GUITAR painters. Etching 66/90 21 x 15 inches Archipenko's formal declaration (Gils Bias Inscribed O Zadkine 14 December 1912) of dissociation from the Like most of his contemporaries, Zadkine Cubists and their principles was followed in worked first in the rigorous discipline of Cub- the next year by his signing Guillaume Apollin- ism — and elements of the style still remain in aire's L'Antitradition Futuriste, Manifeste-Syn- his work. However, a formula that so encour- these (20 June 1913). And in the next year he ages static elements could not long attract an exhibited in the first exhibition of Futurist art artist as poetic and lyrical as Zadkine. in the Galleria Sprovieri, Rome (April-May Zadkine's is a sculpture of movement, and 1914). Also, in a letter from Carra to Sprovieri although the time element of Cubism is essen- (Paris 29-3-1914: Gambillo & Fiori, Archivi del tial to it, it demanded a far more organic treat- Futurismo, 1958, I, p.322). Archipenko had ex- ment of light and a freer interpenetration of pressed his willingness to have an exhibition form and plane. at the Sprovieri Gallery. This did not take The formal qualities of the sculptor's style place, and his first large exhibition in Italy was have been carried over into this etching — the at the Biennale, Venice, in 1920. However, the theme itself, the musician, is central to his connection between Archipenko and Futurism work. It has been said that with the theme, was a strong one, despite Boccioni's opinion: Orpheus, Zadkine has approached closest to 'The sculpture of Archipenko has fallen into his essential being; if music is composed of archaism and barbarism' (letter to Vico Baer, 'sonorously moving forms', then this sculptor's Paris, 21. June, 1913, Archivi del Futurismo art truly 'aspires to the condition of music'. II p.48). This may have been prompted by ar- H.K. tistic testiness since Archipenko was in no page jour Joubt himself that he was aiming at '... ex- movement of the Gondolier, through the re- treme simplification of form' (Archipenko, cession and angling of planes, owes something Tekhne. N.Y. I960, p.49), which was what to his study of Boccioni s sculpture, particularly Boccioni required. The Development of a Bottle in Space. As far as Archipenko's own art is concerned, With Archipenko's Torso of 1909, and it would appear that Medrano I 1912 shows Gondolier, the Gallery now owns two import- the first use of a lay figure articulation. How- ant works in the history of Twentieth Century ever, it does seem that the successful all round sculpture. P.A.T. page five GEORGES MICHEL (1763-1843) French 1830, it is not surprising that he had little suc- WINDMILL IN A LANDSCAPE cess in his own time. Oil on paper on canvas 13 x 18 inches Michel was never well off. Born of a peasant Purchased 1964 family, he received some help in his painting from Taunay and Bruandet. He appears to Michel, whose life is still obscure, worked con- have led an itinerant kind of life, painting and stantly on this motif of a windmill and land- doing a little dealing in Dutch paintings. He scape: a characteristic combination in the was twice married, in 1779 and in 1827, but country around Montmartre and St Denis.