Object Type: Print

Dimensions:

Medium and Support: Color lithograph on paper

Accession Number: 2007.0003.0009

Credit Line: Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts Association Purchase and Gift of Margaret Lynne Ausfeld in memory of Adolph "Bucks" Weil, Jr.

Copyright: © Estate of Alexander Archipenko / Artists Rights Society, (ARS), New York

Innovative artist Alexander Archipenko (American, born Ukraine, 1887–1964) was a seminal figure in early twentieth-century art, renowned for his achievements in modern sculpture. Archipenko found inspiration in the works of Cubists and Italian Futurists, forging new ground by combining traditional and nontraditional materials. His signature "sculpto-paintings," a fusion of both painting and sculpture, and his technique of incorporating voids within his works proved his pioneering, avant-garde approach. Archipenko also embraced printmaking and he worked in a variety of print techniques. Prints were often studies for his three-dimensional pieces or refinements of his completed sculptures. This is often how Archipenko worked. He returned to earlier ideas and created a symbiotic relationship between his drawings, prints, and sculptural works. As he explored his ideas in one medium it would spur ideas for exploration in another format. In 1921, Archipenko created the portfolio, "Alexandre Archipenko: Dreizehn Steinzeichnungen" (translated as thirteen stone carvings, or thirteen lithographs) with the publisher Verlag Ernst Wasmuth in Berlin. This grouping of thirteen prints includes Archipenko’s first foray with color in the graphic arts. In addition to other subjects, a number of sheets in the portfolio feature the female nude, an image that, rendered abstractly or realistically, was the touchstone that Archipenko returned to throughout his career. Of the thirteen images in this portfolio, at least six have a direct correlation to either drawings or sculptures demonstrating the range of his concerns, from the female nude to Cubism. For example, "Standing Woman" resembles several of Archipenko's constructions and sculpto-paintings, particularly "Woman," 1923. Regarding this piece, Karshan comments on how it was "Unusual at that time for artists to employ such bright colors in lithographs of cubist design." (1)
(1) Donald Karshan, Archipenko: The Sculpture and Graphic Art, Including a Print Catalogue Raisonné, Tübingen: Ernst Wasmuth, 1974, p. 95.