Family Life

Details

Alexander Archipenko (1887-1964)
Family Life
signed, dated, numbered, inscribed and stamped with foundry mark 'Archipenko. 1912 1/12 SALON d'AUTOMNE PARIS 1912 MODERN ART FDRY. N.Y.' (on the back)
bronze with brown patina
Height: 22 3/8 in. (56.8 cm.)
Conceived in 1912; this bronze version cast circa 1960

Provenance

Acquired from the artist by the present owner.

Literature

A. Archipenko, Archipenko, Fifty Creative Years, New York, 1960, no. 102 (plaster version illustrated).
D.H. Karshan, Archipenko, The Sculpture and Graphic Art, Tübingen, 1974, p. 156.
K.J. Michaelsen, Archipenko, A Study of the Early Works 1908-1920, New York, 1977, pp. 61-62 and 165, no. S31 (plaster version illustrated).

Exhibited

Los Angeles, The UCLA Art Galleries; Cincinnati Art Museum; Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; Dallas Museum of Fine Arts; Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego; Utica, Munson-Williams-Proctor Institute; Washington, D.C., National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institute; Phoenix Art Museum; Minneapolis, Walker Art Center and St. Louis, Washington University, Alexander Archipenko, February 1967-January 1969, p. 65, no. 10 (illustrated, p. 39).
Paris, Musée Rodin; Lyon, Madeleine Rocher-Jauneau Musée des Beaux-Arts; Rennes, Musée des Beaux Arts; Nantes, Musée des Beaux Arts; Brussels, Palais des Beaux-Arts; Essen, Museum Folkwang; Munich, Haus der Kunst; Bonn, Rheinisches Landesmuseum; Mannheim, Städtische Kunsthalle; Geneva, Musèe Rath and Dublin, Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Archipenko, International Visionary, 1969-1970, p. 39, no. 10 (illustrated, pl. 35).
New York, The Ukrainian Museum; Northampton, Massachusetts, Smith College Museum of Art and Madison, Elvehjem Museum of Art, Alexander Archipenko, Vision and Continuity, New York, April 2005-December 2006, p. 236, no. 7 (illustrated in color, p. 154).

Lot Essay

Frances Archipenko Gray has confirmed the authenticity of this work.

In 1912 Achipenko executed a terracotta sculpture comprising of two full-length figures and a child, measuring approximately six feet (cf. D.H. Karshan, op. cit., p. 29, no. 34). In 1912, this sculpture was exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Paris, and in 1913 at the Armory show in New York. It was accidentally destroyed soon after, probably during its return to Paris. Because of the importance of this sculpture, Archipenko reconstructed the upper portion in terracotta in 1935 (ibid., no. 33), and later executed a smaller variant, from which the present sculpture was cast.

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