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Lot Essay
Frances Archipenko Gray has confirmed the authenticity of this work.
Gondolier was among the four Archipenko sculptures featured at the spring 1914 Salon des Indépendants, an event that heralded a pivotal moment in the artist's career and earned him celebrity as the first Cubist sculptor. Since arriving in Paris in 1908, Archipenko had moved away from his pared down monoliths to emphasize an increasingly Cubist vernacular of abutting planes, quotidian materials, and polychrome. By embracing negative space as an active element of sculptural articulation, Archipenko drew a new equivalent between the dialectics of plane and shadow in two-dimensional media and the play of presence and absence implied by concave and convex shapes. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the first director of The Museum of Modern Art, described Archipenko in 1936 as "the first to work seriously and consistently at the problem of Cubist sculpture" (Cubism and Modern Art, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1936, p. 104).
Gondolier evinces the transformation of shape into geometry. The radical fusion of a gondolier's leg and pole into one dynamic diagonal adds thrust to the static sculpture, suggesting movement in three-dimensions. It is a quintessential example of Archipenko's work from his early period. Casts of the motif are in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Katherine J. Michaelsen has written; "In retrospect, the years 1913 and 1914 stand out as the creative high point of Archipenko's early period. His most successful and important sculptures, among them some unqualified masterpieces were created in these two years. Incorporated into these works are all of the significant sculptural innovations that earned Archipenko a position among handful of pioneers of modern sculpture" (op. cit., pp. 45-46).
Gondolier was among the four Archipenko sculptures featured at the spring 1914 Salon des Indépendants, an event that heralded a pivotal moment in the artist's career and earned him celebrity as the first Cubist sculptor. Since arriving in Paris in 1908, Archipenko had moved away from his pared down monoliths to emphasize an increasingly Cubist vernacular of abutting planes, quotidian materials, and polychrome. By embracing negative space as an active element of sculptural articulation, Archipenko drew a new equivalent between the dialectics of plane and shadow in two-dimensional media and the play of presence and absence implied by concave and convex shapes. Alfred H. Barr, Jr., the first director of The Museum of Modern Art, described Archipenko in 1936 as "the first to work seriously and consistently at the problem of Cubist sculpture" (Cubism and Modern Art, exh. cat., The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1936, p. 104).
Gondolier evinces the transformation of shape into geometry. The radical fusion of a gondolier's leg and pole into one dynamic diagonal adds thrust to the static sculpture, suggesting movement in three-dimensions. It is a quintessential example of Archipenko's work from his early period. Casts of the motif are in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Katherine J. Michaelsen has written; "In retrospect, the years 1913 and 1914 stand out as the creative high point of Archipenko's early period. His most successful and important sculptures, among them some unqualified masterpieces were created in these two years. Incorporated into these works are all of the significant sculptural innovations that earned Archipenko a position among handful of pioneers of modern sculpture" (op. cit., pp. 45-46).