At lower right: Archipenko 1/6 1920 variant 2

Archipenko. International Visionary. Traveling European Exhibition from Smithsonian Institute, 1969–1971, No. 35

Model 1920

This relief is one of the most vivid examples of so-called Cubist “sculptopainting.” “Aesthetically, this is a new kind of art because of the unique interplay of the relief of the concave and perforated forms with color and texture,” the artist said. The work was first shown at the Venice Biennale of 1920. It consisted of a wooden base, the relief made of concave pieces of tin, bits of wood, and painted sacking. It was purchased at the end of the exhibition by the Swiss collector G. Falk (it is now in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art). Arkhipenko retained none of the preliminary studies for the piece. In the 1950s he re-created it from memory as “version 2.” A series of six castings, of which this is one, was made from a plaster of Paris model.