Biografie von Alexander ARCHIPENKO (1887-1964)

Birth place: Kiev, Ukraine

Death place: NYC

Addresses: NYC/Woodstock, NY, from 1923 (lived in California, 1933-37)

Profession: Sculptor, painter, lithographer, teacher

Studied: Kiev Art Inst., 1902-05; arrived in Paris in 1908, studied at …cole des Beaux Arts, and worked with Amedeo Modigliano and Henri Guadier-Brzeska.

Exhibited: Salon des Indépendents, 1910; Section d'Or, 1912; Armory Show, 1913; Société Anonyme, NYC, 1921 (solo); AIC; WMAA,1939-1957

Member: Section d'Or, 1912; Woodstock Artists Assoc.

Work: monument, Public Gardens, Cleveland; MoMA, WMAA, Woodstock Artists Assoc., and other major museums throughout the U.S.; also in Frankfurt, Mannheim, Leipzig, Hannover, Essen, and Hamburg (Germany); Osaka, Japan; Vienna; Rotterdam; Kiev; Nat. Gallery, Berlin.

Comments: Pioneer modernist, art innovator and teacher. Archipenko lived and exhibited in Moscow before establishing himself in Paris in 1908, where he joined the Passy circle of Cubists that included LÈger and Duchamp. In 1912 he made one of the first multi-medium sculptures, Medrano I, which included wood, glass, and wire, and also introduced his sculpto-paintings," reliefs constructed from carved and painted plaster. He was in Berlin in 1921 and from there emigrated to the U.S. in 1923, with the encouragement of Katherine Dreier. In 1927 he patented Archipentura. In the U.S. he devoted much time to teaching, opening the Guild School in New York in the 1930s and teaching throughout the country. Positions: teacher, Mills College, Oakland, 1933; Chouinard Art Inst., 1934; founder, director and instructor, Guild School, NYC, and Woodstock, NY, early 1930s; Univ. Washington, 1935-36; Archipenko Art School, Los Angeles, CA, 1935-37; Chicago, 1937. Author: 8 monographs.

Sources: WW59; WW47; more recently, see Baigell, Dictionary; Hughes, Artists of California, 21; Fort, The Figure in American Sculpture, 172-73 (w/repro.); add'l. info. courtesy Woodstock Artists Assoc."