Alexander Archipenko

Alexander Porfyrovych Archipenko (also referred to as Olexandr, Oleksandr, or Aleksandr; Олександр Порфирович Архипенко; May 30 1887 – February 25, 1964) was a Ukrainian-American avant-garde artist, sculptor, and graphic artist, active in France and the United States. He was one of the first to apply the principles of Cubism to architecture, analyzing human figure into geometrical forms.

Biography


Alexander Archipenko was born in Kyiv (Russian Empire, now Ukraine) in 1887, to Porfiry Antonowych Archipenko and Poroskowia Vassylivna Machowa Archipenko; he was the younger brother of Eugene Archipenko.

From 1902 to 1905 he attended the Kyiv Art School (KKhU). In 1906 he continued his education in the arts at Serhiy Svetoslavsky (Kyiv), and later that year had an exhibition there with Alexander Bogomazov. He then moved to Moscow where he had a chance to exhibit his work in some group shows.

Archipenko moved to Paris in 1908 and quickly enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts, which he left after a few weeks. He was a resident in the artist's colony La Ruche, among émigré Ukrainian artists: Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, and Nathan Altman. After 1910 he had exhibitions at Salon des Indépendants, Salon d'Automne together with Aleksandra Ekster, Kazimir Malevich, Vadym Meller, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, Georges Braque, André Derain, and others.

In 1912, Archipenko had his first personal exhibition at the Museum Folkwang at Hagen in Germany, and from 1912 to 1914 he was teaching at his own Art School in Paris.

Four of Archipenko's Cubist sculptures, including Family Life and five of his drawings, appeared in the controversial Armory Show in 1913 in New York City. These works were caricatured in the New York World.

Archipenqko moved to Nice in 1914. In 1920 he participated in Twelfth Biennale Internazionale dell'Arte di Venezia in Italy and started his own Art school in Berlin the following year. In 1922 Archipenko participated in the First Russian Art Exhibition in the Gallery van Diemen in Berlin together with Aleksandra Ekster, Kazimir Malevich, Solomon Nikritin, El Lissitzky, and others.

In 1923, he emigrated to the United States. He became a U.S. citizen in 1929. In 1933 he exhibited at the Ukrainian pavilion in Chicago as part of the Century of Progress World's Fair. Archipenko contributed the most to the success of the Ukrainian pavilion. His works occupied one room and were valued at $25,000.

In 1936 Archipenko participated in an exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art in New York as well as numerous exhibitions across Europe and other places in the U.S. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1962.

Alexander Archipenko died on February 25, 1964, in New York City. He is interred at Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx, New York City.

Contribution to art
Archipenko, along with the French-Hungarian sculptor Joseph Csaky, exhibited at the first public manifestations of Cubism in Paris; the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d'Automne, 1910 and 1911, being the first, after Pablo Picasso, to employ the Cubist style in three dimensions. Archipenko departed from the neo-classical sculpture of his time, using faceted planes and negative space to create a new way of looking at the human figure, showing a number of views of the subject simultaneously. He is known for having introducied sculptural voids, and for his inventive mixing of genres throughout his career: devising 'sculpto-paintings', and later experimenting with materials such as clear acrylic and terra cotta. Inspired by the works of Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, he is also credited for introducing the collage to wider audiences with his Medrano series.

The sculptor Ann Weaver Norton apprenticed with Archipenko for a number of years.

Public collections
Among the public collections holding works by Alexander Archipenko are:
 * The Addison Gallery of American Art (Andover, Massachusetts)
 * The Art Institute of Chicago
 * The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art (Northwestern University, Illinois)
 * Brigham Young University Museum of Art (Utah)
 * Chi-Mei Museum (Taiwan)
 * The Delaware Art Museum (Wilmington, Delaware)
 * The Denver Art Museum (Colorado)
 * The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
 * The Guggenheim Museum (New York City)
 * The Hermitage Museum (Saint Petersburg)
 * The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (Washington D.C.)
 * The Honolulu Museum of Art
 * Indiana University Art Museum (Bloomington)
 * The Los Angeles County Museum of Art
 * The Maier Museum of Art (Randolph-Macon Woman's College, Virginia)
 * The Milwaukee Art Museum
 * The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Minneapolis)
 * The Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (Alabama)
 * The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
 * The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
 * The Museum of Modern Art (New York City)
 * The National Museum of Serbia (Belgrade, Serbia)
 * The Nasher Sculpture Center (Dallas, Texas)
 * The National Gallery of Art (Washington D.C.)
 * National Museum Cardiff
 * The North Carolina Museum of Art
 * The Norton Simon Museum (Pasadena, California)
 * The Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice)
 * The Philadelphia Museum of Art (Pennsylvania)
 * The Phillips Collection (Washington D.C.)
 * The Portland Art Museum (Portland, Oregon)
 * The Portland Museum of Art (Maine)
 * Salisbury House (Des Moines, Iowa)
 * The San Antonio Art League Museum (Texas)
 * The San Diego Museum of Art (California)
 * The Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery (Lincoln, Nebraska)
 * The Smithsonian American Art Museum (Washington D.C.)
 * Städel Museum (Frankfurt)
 * Tate Modern (London)
 * The Tel Aviv Museum of Art (Israel)
 * The Ukrainian Museum (New York City)
 * Von der Heydt-Museum (Wuppertal, Germany)
 * Walker Art Center (Minnesota)
 * The Cleveland Cultural Gardens (Ukrainian Garden) in Rockefeller Park (Ohio)
 * Fundación D.O.P. (Caracas)
 * Museum de Fundatie (Zwolle, Netherlands)

Archipenko's 14.5 ft tall cubist statue of King Solomon is installed at the University of Pennsylvania campus. Archipenko began work on a smaller prototype of the statue in 1964, but died before the work was finished, leaving his wife to oversee its completion. The full-sized statue was completed in 1968 and was donated to the university in 1985.

Commemoration and Legacy


During his lifetime Arkhipenko maintained close ties with the Ukrainian community in the USA, participating in the creation of monuments to Shevchenko, Frank and Prince Volodymyr on American soil.

A street in the Obolonskyi District of Kyiv and a street in the Sofiivka area of Lviv are named in his honour.

On May 30, 2017, Ukraine celebrated the 130 years since the birth of Oleksandr Arkhipenko.

On November 9, 2017, the National Bank of Ukraine circulated a 2-hryvnia commemorative coin dedicated to the artist. His portrait is depicted on the reverse of the coin.