Joseph Csaky

Joseph Csaky (also written Josef Csàky, Csáky József, József Csáky and Joseph Alexandre Csaky) (18 March 1888 – 1 May 1971) was a Hungarian avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist, best known for his early participation in the Cubist movement as a sculptor. Csaky was one of the first sculptors in Paris to apply the principles of pictorial Cubism to his art. A pioneer of modern sculpture, Csaky is among the most important sculptors of the early 20th century. He was an active member of the Section d'Or group between 1911 and 1914, and closely associated with Crystal Cubism, Purism, De Stijl, Abstract art, and Art Deco throughout the 1920s and 1930s.

Csaky fought alongside French soldiers during World War I and in 1922 became a naturalized French citizen. He was a founding member of l'Union des Artistes modernes (UAM) in 1929. During World War II, Csaky joined forces with the French underground movement (la Résistance) in Valençay. In the late 1920s, he collaborated with some other artists in designing furniture and other decorative pieces, including elements of the Studio House of the fashion designer Jacques Doucet.

After 1928, Csaky moved away from Cubism into a more figurative or representational style for nearly thirty years. He exhibited internationally across Europe, but some of his pioneering artistic innovation was forgotten. His work today is primarily held by French and Hungarian institutions, as well as museums, galleries and private collections both in France and abroad.

Biography

Early life Joseph Csaky, 1911–12, Groupe de femmes, plaster lost, photo Galerie René Reichard, Frankfurt. Exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne, and Salon des Indépendants, 1913, Paris József Csáky was born in Szeged, Hungary, then part of the dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. A provincial southern city, Szeged is now the third-largest in the country.

Csaky moved with his family to Budapest at an early age, where he frequented museums and galleries. In 1905, Csaky was accepted at the Academy of Applied Arts (Mintarajziskola) in Budapest, By autumn of 1908 he shared a studio space at Cité Falguière with Joseph Brummer, a Hungarian friend who had opened the Brummer Gallery with his brothers and was studying art. Within three weeks of Csaky's arrival in Paris, Brummer showed the newcomer a sculpture he was working on: an exact copy of an African sculpture from the Congo. Brummer told Csaky that another artist in Paris, a Spaniard named Pablo Picasso, was painting in the spirit of 'Negro' sculptures.

Joseph Csaky, 1912, Danseuse (Femme à l'éventail, Femme à la cruche), original plaster, exhibited at the Salon d'Automne of 1912, Paris, n. 405, and Salon des Indépendants of 1914, n. 813, photo from Csaky archives AC.110 Joseph Csaky, Head (Tête d'homme), 1913, Plaster lost. Photo published in Montjoie! March 1914, also Richard, René, 1988 Shortly after, Csaky found a studio at the artists' collective La Ruche in Montparnasse. The building had been constructed by Gustave Eiffel, and was adapted as artists' studios by the sculptor Alfred Boucher. Among other émigré artists at La Ruche were Alexander Archipenko (who arrived in Paris the same year), Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, and Sonia Delaunay (Terk). In the early years of the 20th century, other artists who lived there for a time included Guillaume Apollinaire, Ossip Zadkine, Moise Kisling, Marc Chagall, Max Pechstein, Fernand Léger, Jacques Lipchitz, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, Chaïm Soutine, Robert Delaunay, Amedeo Modigliani, Constantin Brâncuși, and Diego Rivera, attracted to Paris from across Europe and Mexico.

With his discovery of the work of Auguste Rodin laying the groundwork for an oeuvre characterized by a mastery of sculptural techniques, Csaky's work in stone carving would evolve.

The inspirations that led Csaky to Cubism were diverse, as they were for artists of the Bateau-Lavoir, on the one hand, or the Puteaux Group on the other. While art historians are divided on the influence of African art in the distillation of Cubism, they generally agree that Cézanne's geometric syntax was significant, as well as Seurat's approach to painting. Given a growing dissatisfaction with the classical methods of representation, and the contemporary changes—the industrial revolution, exposure to art from across the world—artists began to transform their expression.

In 1911, Csaky exhibited his Cubist sculptures at the Salon des Indépendants (21 April – 13 June) with Archipenko, Duchamp, Gleizes, Laurencin, La Fresnaye, Léger, Picabia and Metzinger. This exhibition provoked an 'involuntary scandal' out of which Cubism, brought to the attention of the general public for the first time, emerged and spread throughout Paris and beyond. Four months later Csaky exhibited at the Salon d'Automne (1 October – 8 November) together with the same artists, in addition to Modigliani, Lhote, Duchamp-Villon, Villon and František Kupka.

The following year Csaky showed with the Cubists at the 1912 Salon des Indépendants (20 March – 16 May): with Archipenko, Gleizes, La Fresnaye, Laurencin, Le Fauconnier, Léger, Lhote, Zadkine, Duchamp, Constantin Brâncuși, Wilhelm Lehmbruck, Robert Delaunay, Juan Gris, Piet Mondrian, Alfréd Réth, and Diego Rivera.

The Salon d'Automne of 1912, held in Paris at the Grand Palais from 1 October to 8 November. Csaky's sculpture Groupe de femmes ( of 1911–12 is exhibited to the left, in front of two sculptures by Amedeo Modigliani. Other works are shown by Jean Metzinger, František Kupka, Francis Picabia and Henri Le Fauconnier. Csaky participated in the Salon d'Automne of 1912 (1 October – 8 November) with the Cubists: Duchamp, Duchamp-Villon, Gleizes, La Fresnaye, Le Fauconnier, Léger, Lhote, Marcoussis, Metzinger, Picabia, Villon and Kupka. A rare photograph of the 1912 Salon d'Automne shows Csaky's Groupe de femmes, a sculpture now lost, exhibited in front of Kupka's Amorpha: Fugue in Two Colours and next to sculptures by Amedeo Modigliani. In the same photograph can be seen Henri Le Fauconnier's vast composition Les Montagnards attaqués par des ours (Mountaineers Attacked by Bears,) now at the Rhode Island School of Design Museum; and Francis Picabia's monumental La Source (The Spring), now at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Csaky exhibited as a member of Section d'Or at the Galerie La Boétie (10–30 October 1912), with Archipenko, Duchamp-Villon, La Fresnaye, Gleizes, Gris, Laurencin, Léger, Lhote, Marcoussis, Metzinger, Picabia, Kupka, Villon and Duchamp.

By this time, Csaky's participation in the avant-garde milieu was complete.

1914–1918

"One could say that before the war, life in Paris had been like a summer day, and after the announcement of war the sky and life were darkened by weighty, heavy clouds" (Joseph Csaky) These 1919 works (e.g., Cones and Spheres, Abstract Sculpture) are made of juxtaposing sequences of rhythmic geometric forms, where light and shadow, mass and the void, play a key role. They allude, occasionally, to the structure of the human body or modern machines, but the semblance functions only as "elements" (Reverdy) and are deprived of descriptive narrative. Csaky's polychrome reliefs of the early 1920s display an affinity with Purism—an extreme form of the Cubism aesthetic developing at the time—in their rigorous economy of architectonic symbols and the use of crystalline geometric structures. "a puritanical denial of sensuousness that reduced the cubist vocabulary to rectangles, verticals, horizontals," writes Balas, "a Spartan alliance of discipline and strength" to which Csaky adhered in his Tower Figures. "In their aesthetic order, lucidity, classical precision, emotional neutrality, and remoteness from visible reality, they should be considered stylistically and historically as belonging to the De Stijl movement." (Balas, 1998)

1928–1971, Toward figurativism From 1928, while his fellow pioneers tended towards greater abstraction, Csaky moved away both from the faceted Cubism of his early Parisian epoch, and from the highly abstract or nonrepresentational intent of his post-war series. Turning towards figurative art, he no longer saw potential in abstraction.

Waldemar George, the Polish-French art critic, writes in 1930 of Csaky's departure from abstraction: "The cube, the polyhedron with right angles with its abrupt edges, are replaced by ovoids and spheres." Turning towards a more representational figuration—in a highly stylized, curvilinear and descriptive form—allowed Csaky the contact with reality, a reality that ran deeper than surface appearances. For the rest of his life, he was interested primarily in the female body in youth, a theme that expressed optimism, happiness and well-being. He was fascinated by the beauty and expressiveness of the human form in itself. He explored the subject to express his ideas and connotations attached to them. His monumental figures (although not always in sheer size) possess a timeless "amaranthine beauty, a fundamental essence relevant only to themselves."

Selected works

Femme et enfant (1909), collection Zborovsky Tête de femme de profil (1909), exhibited Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, 1910, Paris Tête de femme de face (1909) Tête de femme, Portrait de Jeanne (1910) Tête d'homme, Autoportrait, Tête Cubiste (1911), location unknown, exhibited Salon d'Automne, 1911, Paris Groupe de femmes (1911–1912), location unknown, exhibited Salon d'Automne, 1912, Salon des Indépendants, 1913, Paris Head (1912) Tête de femme, Buste de femme (1912), exhibited Salon des Indépendants, 1913, Paris Danseuse, Femme à l'éventail, Femme à la cruche (1912), exhibited Salon d'Automne, 1912, Paris Figure de Femme Debout (Standing Woman), or Figure Habillée (1913), exhibited Salon des Indépendants, 1914, Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, and currently in the collection of Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), and Solomon Guggenheim Museum New York, acquired 1977 Works on paper, 1913, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Head (1913) location unknown Head (1914), Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, Musée d'Art et d'Industrie de Saint-Étienne Cubist Composition (1919) Musée d'Art moderne et d'Art contemporain de la Ville de Liège (MAMAC) Cubist Head (1920) Deux figures (1920), Relief, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands Tête (1923), Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, the Netherlands Mother and Child (1926) Mother and Young Child, (1930), stone, 160 cm: Les Musées Nationaux, circa 1950. Pétrus Faure (1891–1985), Mayor from 1947 to 1971, had this monumental sculpture placed in the Parc du Bouchet, Le Chambon-Feugerolles (believed to be its current location). La Danseuse, the Dancer (1940–1959), Szeged, Kálvin tér, Anna-kút public square Bas-Reliefs (1952), commissioned by Georges Lecompte, Ministère de l'Education Nationale, Amiens, two Bas-Reliefs by Csaky

Selected exhibitions Joseph Csaky, ca. 1920, Tête (Head), limestone, 60 cm, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo

During his life Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, 1910–1911 Salon d'Automne, 1911, 1912, 1945, 1949 Salon des Indépendants, 1911, 1912, 1913, 1914, 1920, 1923 Salon de la Section d'Or, Galerie La Boétie, Octobre 1912 Galerie de l'Effort Moderne, Léonce Rosenberg, Les Mâitre du Cubisme, Paris, 1921, 1924 Salon des Artistes Décorateurs, 1924 Salon des Tuileries, 1928, 1929 Reid & Lefevre Art Gallery, London, 1930 Exposition de l'Union des Artistes Modernes, 1930, 1931, 1937, 1955 Museum Heilbronn, Museum, Saarbrücken, 1932 Galerie Casperi, München, Galerie Valentien, Stuttgart, 1933 Ernst Múzeum, Budapest, 1936 L'Exposition Internationale, Arts et Techniques dans la Vie moderne, (Expositions universelles de Paris), 1937 Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Cent Ans de Sculpture Française, 1933–1939, 1940 Volksuniversiteit, Rotterdam, the Netherlands 1949 Centraal Museum, Utrecht, the Netherlands, 1950 Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, the Netherlands, 1953 Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris, Le Cubisme, 1953 Musée d'Art et d'Industrie de Saint-Étienne, L'Art de l'Afrique Noire, 1956 Csáky Retrospective Exhibition (Kulturális Kapcsolatok Intézete), Budapest, Hungary, 1959 Musée d'Art et d'Industrie de Saint-Étienne, Cent sculptures de Daumier à nos jours, 1960 Musée d'Ixelles, Palais des beaux-arts, Charleroi, Tournai, Luxembourg, De Maillol à nos Jours: 120 sculptures et dessins du Musée National d'Art Moderne de Paris, 1960 Athènes, Biennale en plein air, Panathénées de la Sculpture, Sept.-Nov 1965 Deutsche Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst, Berlin, Avant-Garde, 1910–1930 Osteurops, 1967 Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Art Deco, July–September 1971 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1971 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1971 Museu de Arte Contemporanea de USP, São Paulo, Tendencias de Escultura Moderna, W. Zanini, 1971 Tate Gallery, London. Léger and Purist Paris, 18 November 1970 – 24 January 1971

Post-humous Hayward Gallery, London, Pioneers of Modern Sculpture, 20 July – 23 September 1973 Galerie Dépôt 15, Paris, Csaky, 15 October-30 November 1973 Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux, Les Cubistes, 4 May-1 September 1973 Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Les Cubistes, 26 September-10 November 1973 Palais des Arts et de la Culture, Brest, La Sculpture et le Cubisme, 1976 Musée Bourdelle, Trois Sculpteurs des Années 30, Gargalo-Csaky-Lambert Rucki, Juin-Sept. 1977 Grand Palais, Paris, L'Art Moderne dans les Musée de Province, 1977 Orangerie des Tuileries, Paris, Donation Pierre Lévy, 16 February-16 April 1978 Musée Rodin, Paris, Formes Humaines, neuvième biennale de sculpture contemporaine – Hommage a Csaky, 3–30 June 1980 Fondation Maeght, Saint-Paul de Vence, Sculpture du XXe siècle 1900–1945: Tradition et rupture, 4 July-4 October 1981 Kubismus, Kunsthalle, Cologne, Germany, 1982 Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Troyes, Csaky, Sculptures Dessins, 26 Juin-15 September 1986 Galerie René Reichard, Frankfurt, Joseph Csaky 1888–1971, Kubistische und Nachkubistische Skulpturen 1913–1950, 12/10 – 3/12 1988 Galerie Berès, Au Temps des Cubistes, Oct. 2006 – Jan. 2007 Solomon Guggenheim Museum New York collection, acquired 1977, and the Modern Art Gallery in Saarbrücken collection, Figure de Femme Debout, or Figure Habillée (1913) Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris – MAM/ARC, L'école de Paris, 1904–1929 – La part de l'Autre, 2000 Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Helenes Favourites, 2004 Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara (FE), Il Cubismo. Rivoluzione e tradizione, 2004 MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts, Debrecen, Ninety-Nine Years – The Antal-Lusztig Collection in the Modem, 2006 Galería Leandro Navarro, Madrid, Los tiempos del Cubismo, 2007 MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts, Debrecen, Body language – Antal-Lusztig collection II., 2007 Janos Gat Gallery, New York City, Hungarian Modernism, 2010 Hollis Taggart Galleries, New York City, Modernist Works from a California Collection, 2010