Early life Marcel Janco was born on 24 May 1895 in Bucharest to an
upper middle class Jewish family. His father, Hermann Zui Iancu, was a textile merchant. His mother, Rachel née Iuster, was from
Moldavia. The couple lived outside
Bucharest's Jewish quarter, on Decebal Street. He was the oldest of four children. His brothers were Iuliu (Jules) and George. His sister, Lucia, was born in 1900. In 1980, Janco revisited his childhood years, writing: "Born as I was in beautiful Romania, into a family of well-to-do people, I had the fortune of being educated in a climate of freedom and spiritual enlightenment. My mother, [...] possessing a genuine musical talent, and my father, a stern man and industrious merchant, had created the conditions favorable for developing all of my aptitudes. [...] I was of a sensitive and emotional nature, a withdrawn child who was predisposed to dreaming and meditating. [...] I grew up [...] dominated by a strong sense of humanity and social justice. The existence of disadvantaged, weak, people, of impoverished workers, of beggars, hurt me and, when compared to our family's decent condition, awoke in me a feeling of guilt." Janco attended Gheorghe Șincai School and studied drawing art with the Romanian Jewish painter and cartoonist
Iosif Iser. In his teenage years, the family traveled widely, from
Austria-Hungary to
Switzerland,
Italy and the
Netherlands. At
Gheorghe Lazăr High School, he met several students who would become his artistic companions: Tzara (known then as
S. Samyro), Vinea (
Iovanaki), writers Jacques G. Costin and Poldi Chapier. Janco also became friends with pianist
Clara Haskil, the subject of his first published drawing, which appeared in
Flacăra magazine in March 1912. As a group, the students were under the influence of
Romanian Symbolist clubs, which were at the time the more radical expressions of artistic rejuvenation in Romania. Marcel and Jules Janco's first moment of cultural significance took place in October 1912, when they joined Tzara in editing the Symbolist venue
Simbolul, which managed to receive contributions from some of Romania's leading modern poets, from
Alexandru Macedonski to
Ion Minulescu and
Adrian Maniu. The magazine nevertheless struggled to find its voice, alternating
modernism with the more conventional Symbolism. Janco was perhaps the main graphic designer of
Simbolul, and he may even have persuaded his wealthy parents to support the venture (which closed down in early 1913). Unlike Tzara, who refused to look back on
Simbolul with anything but embarrassment, Janco proudly regarded it as his first participation in artistic revolution. After the
Simbolul moment, Marcel Janco worked at
Seara daily, where he took further training in draftsmanship. The newspaper took him in as illustrator, probably as a result of intercessions from Vinea, its literary columnist. Janco was also a visitor of the literary and art club meeting at the home of controversial politician and Symbolist poet
Alexandru Bogdan-Pitești, who was for a while the manager of
Seara. It is possible that, during those years, Tzara and Janco first came to hear and be influenced by the
absurdist prose of
Urmuz, the lonesome civil clerk and amateur writer who would later become the hero of Romanian modernism. Years later, in 1923, Janco drew an ink portrait of Urmuz. In maturity, he also remarked that Urmuz was the original rebel figure in
Romanian literature. In the 1910s, Janco was also interested in the parallel development of
French literature, and read passionately from such authors as
Paul Verlaine and
Guillaume Apollinaire. Another immediate source of inspiration for his attitude on life was provided by
Futurism, an
anti-establishment movement created in
Italy by poet
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and his artists' circle.
Swiss journey and Dada events in the "bishop dress", 1916 Janco eventually decided to leave Romania, probably because he wanted to attend international events such as the
Sonderbund exhibit, but also because of quarrels with his father. or a discreet
pacifist statement. Initially, the Jancos were registered with the
University of Zurich, where Marcel took Chemistry courses, before applying to study architecture at the
Federal Institute of Technology. His real ambition, later confessed, was to pursue more training in painting. The two brothers were soon joined by younger Georges Janco, but all three were left without any financial support when the war began hampering Europe's trade routes; until October 1917, both Jules and Marcel (who found it impossible to sell his paintings) earned a living as cabaret performers. Marcel was noted for performing selections from
Romanian folklore and playing the
accordion, as well as for his rendition of
chansons. In this context, the Romanians came into contact with
Hugo Ball and the other independent artists plying their trade at the Malerei building, which soon after became known as
Cabaret Voltaire. Ball later recalled that four "Oriental" men introduced themselves to him late after a show—the description refers to Tzara, the older Jancos and, probably, the Romanian painter
Arthur Segal. Ball found the young painter especially pleasant, and was impressed that, unlike his peers, Janco was melancholy rather than ironic; other participants remember him as a very handsome presence in the group, and he allegedly had the reputation of a "lady-killer". Accounts of what happened next differ, but it is presumed that, shortly after the four new participants were accepted, the performances became more daring, and the transition was made from Ball's Futurism to the virulent
anti-art performances of Tzara and
Richard Huelsenbeck. With help from Segal and others, Marcel Janco was personally involved in decorating the Cabaret Voltaire. He was a major contributor to the cabaret's events: he notably carved the grotesque masks worn by performers on
stilts, gave "hissing concerts" and, in unison with Huelsenbeck and Tzara, improvised some of the first (and mostly
onomatopoeic) "simultaneous poems" to be read on stage. His work with masks became especially influential, opening up a new field of theatrical exploration for the
Dadaists (as the Cabaret Voltaire crew began calling themselves), and earning special praise from Ball. Contrary to Ball's later claim of authorship, Janco is also credited with having tailored the "bishop dress", another one of the iconic products of early Dadaism. The actual birth of "Dadaism", at an unknown date, later formed the basis of disputes between Tzara, Ball, and Huelsenbeck. In this context, Janco is cited as a source for the story according to which the invention of the term "Dada" belonged exclusively to Tzara. Janco also circulated stories according to which their shows were attended for informative purposes by
communist theorist
Vladimir Lenin and psychiatrist
Carl Jung. His mask designs were popular beyond Europe, and inspired similar creations by
Mexico's
Germán Cueto, the "
Stridentist" painter-puppeteer. The Dadaist popularization effort received lukewarm responses in Janco's native country, where the traditionalist press expressed alarm at being confronted with Dada precepts. Vinea himself was ambivalent about the activities of his two friends, preserving a link with poetic tradition which made his publication in Tzara's press impossible. In a letter to Janco, Vinea spoke about having personally presented one of Janco's posters to modernist poet and art critic
Tudor Arghezi: "[He] said, critically, that you cannot say whether a person is talented or not on the basis of only one drawing. Rubbish." Exhibited at the Dada group shows, Janco also illustrated the Dada advertisements, including an April 1917 program which features his sketches of Ball, Tzara and Ball's actress wife
Emmy Hennings. The event featured his production of
Oskar Kokoschka's farce
Sphinx und Strohmann, for which he was also the
stage designer, and which was turned into one of the most notorious among Dada provocations. Janco was the director and mask designer for the Dada production for another one of Kokoschka's plays,
Job. He also returned as Tzara's illustrator, producing the
linocuts to
The First Heavenly Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine, having already created the props for its theatrical production.
"Two-speeds" Dada and Das Neue Leben 's drawings for a
Generalbass der Malerei ("General Basis of Painting"), 1918 As early as 1917, Marcel Janco began taking his distance from the movement he had helped to generate. His work, in both
woodcut and linocut, continued to be used as the illustration to Dada almanacs for another two years, but he was more often than not in disagreement with Tzara, while also trying to diversify his style. As noted by critics, he found himself split between the urge to mock traditional art and the belief that something just as elaborate needed to take its place: in the conflict between Tzara's
nihilism and Ball's
art for art's sake, Janco tended to support the latter. In a 1966 text, he further assessed that there were "two speeds" in Dada, and that the "spiritual violence" phase had eclipsed the "best Dadas", including his fellow painter
Hans Arp. Janco recalled: "We [Janco and Tzara] couldn't agree any more on the importance of Dada, and the misunderstandings accumulated." There were, he noted, "dramatic fights" sparked by Tzara's taste for "bad jokes and scandal". The artist preserved a grudge, and his retrospective views on Tzara's role in Zürich are often sarcastic, depicting him as an excellent organizer and vindictive self-promoter, but not truly a man of culture; a few years into the scandal, he even started a rumor that Tzara was illegally trading in
opium. As noted in 2007 by Romanian literary historian
Paul Cernat: "All the efforts by Ion Vinea to reunite them [...] would be in vain. Iancu and Tzara would ignore (or banter) each other for the rest of their lives". With this split, there came a certain classicization in Marcel Janco's discourse. In February 1918, Janco was even invited to lecture at his
alma mater, where he spoke about modernism and
authenticity in art as related phenomena, drawing comparisons between the
Renaissance and
African art. However, having decided to focus on his other projects, Janco nearly abandoned his studies, and failed his final exam. In this context, he moved closer to the cell of post-Dada Constructivists exhibiting collectively as
Neue Kunst ("New Art")—Arp,
Fritz Baumann,
Hans Richter,
Otto Morach. As a result, Janco was made a member of
Das Neue Leben faction, which supported an educational approach to modern art, coupled with
socialist ideals and Constructivist aesthetics. In its
art manifesto, the group declared its ideal of "rebuild[ing] the human community" in preparation for the end of
capitalism. Janco was even affiliated with
Artistes Radicaux, a more politically inclined section of
Das Neue Leben, where his colleagues included other former Dadas: Arp, Hans Richter,
Viking Eggeling. The
Artistes Radicaux were in touch with the
German Revolution, and Richter, who worked for the short-lived
Bavarian Soviet Republic, even offered Janco and the others virtual teaching positions at the
Academy of Fine Arts under a workers' government.
Between Béthune and Bucharest Janco made his final contribution to the Dada adventure in April 1919, when he designed the masks for a major Dada event organized by Tzara at the Saal zur Kaufleutern, and which degenerated into an infamous mass brawl. By May, he was mandated by
Das Neue Leben to create and publish a journal for the movement. Although this never saw print, the preparations placed Janco in contact with the representatives of various modernist currents:
Arthur Segal,
Walter Gropius,
Alexej von Jawlensky, Oscar Lüthy and
Enrico Prampolini. This period also witnessed the start of a friendly relationship between Janco and the
Expressionist artists who published in
Herwarth Walden's magazine
Der Sturm. A little more than a year after the end of war, in December 1919, Marcel and Jules left Switzerland for
France. After passing through
Paris, the painter was in
Béthune, where he married Amélie Micheline "Lily" Ackermann, in what was described as a gesture of fronde against his father. The girl was a
Swiss Catholic of lowly condition, who had first met the Jancos at
Das Neue Leben. Janco was probably in Béthune for a longer while: he was listed as one of those considered for helping to rebuild war-affected
French Flanders, redesigned the Chevalier-Westrelin store in
Hinges, and was perhaps the co-owner of an architectural enterprise,
Ianco & Déquire. It is not unlikely that Janco followed with curiosity the activities of Dada's Parisian cell, which were overseen by Tzara and his pupil
André Breton, and he is known to have impressed Breton with his own architectural projects. He was also announced, with Tzara, as a contributor to the post-Dada magazine ''
L'Esprit Nouveau, published by Paul Dermée. Nevertheless, Janco was invited to exhibit elsewhere, rallying with Section d'Or'', a Cubist collective. Janco was soon reconciled with his parents, and, although still unlicensed as an architect, began receiving his first commissions, some of which came from within his own family. His first known design, constructed in 1922 and officially registered as the work of one I. Rosenthal, is a group of seven alley houses, 3 pairs and corner residence, on his father Hermann Iancu's property, at 79 Maximilian Popper Street (prev Trinității Street 29); one of these became his new home. Essentially traditional in style, they are also somewhat stylised, recalling the plainness of the English Arts & Crafts or the Czech 'Cubist' style. Soon after making his comeback, Marcel Janco reconnected himself with the local
avant-garde salons, and had his first Romanian exhibits, at the ''Maison d'Art'' club in Bucharest. His friends and collaborators, among them actress Dida Solomon and journalist-director Sandu Eliad, would describe him as exceptionally charismatic and knowledgeable. In December 1926, he was present at the Hasefer Art Show in Bucharest. Around that year, Janco took commissions as an art teacher at his studio in Bucharest—in the words of his pupil, the future painter
Hedda Sterne, these were informal: "We were given easels, etc. but nobody looked, nobody advised us."
Contimporanul beginnings From his position as Constructivist mentor and international artist, Janco proceeded to network between Romanian modernist currents, and joined up with his old colleague Vinea. Early in 1922, the two men founded a political and art magazine, the influential
Contimporanul—historically, the longest-lived venue of the Romanian avant-garde. Janco was abroad that year, as one of guests at the First Constructivist Congress, convened by Dutch artist
Theo van Doesburg in
Düsseldorf. He was in Zürich around 1923, receiving the visit of a compatriot, writer
Victor Eftimiu, who declared him a hard-working artist able to reconcile the modern with the traditional.
Contimporanul followed Janco's Constructivist affiliation. Initially a venue for socialist satire and political commentary, it reflected Vinea's strong dislike for the ruling
National Liberal Party. However, by 1923, the journal became increasingly cultural and artistic in its revolt, headlining with translations from van Doesburg and Breton, publishing Vinea's own homage to Futurism, and featuring illustrations and international notices which Janco may have handpicked himself. Some researchers have attributed the change exclusively to the painter's growing say in editorial policy. Janco was at the time in correspondence with Dermée, who was to contribute the
Contimporanul anthology of modern
French poetry, and with fellow painter
Michel Seuphor, who collected Janco's Constructivist sculptures. He maintained a link between
Contimporanul and
Der Sturm, which republished his drawings alongside the contributions of various Romanian avant-garde writers and artists. The reciprocal popularization was taken up by
Ma, the
Vienna-based tribune of
Hungarian modernists, which also published samples of Janco's graphics. Owing to Janco's resentments and Vinea's apprehension, the magazine never covered the issuing of new Dada manifestos, and responded critically to Tzara's new versions of Dada history. Marcel Janco also took charge of
Contimporanuls business side, designing its offices on Imprimerie Street and overseeing the publication of postcards. Over the years, his own contributions to
Contimporanul came to include some 60 illustrations, some 40 articles on art and architectural topics, and a number of his architectural designs or photographs of buildings erected from them. He oversaw one of the journal's first special issues, dedicated to "Modern Architecture", and notably hosting his own contributions to architectural theory, as well as his design of a "country workshop" for Vinea's use. Other issues also featured his essay on film and theater, his furniture designs, and his interview with the French Cubist
Robert Delaunay. Janco was also largely responsible for the
Contimporanul issue on Surrealism, which included his interviews with writers such as
Joseph Delteil, and his inquiry about the publisher Simon Krà. Together with Romanian Cubist painter
M. H. Maxy, Janco was personally involved in curating the
Contimporanul International Art Exhibit of 1924. This event reunited the major currents of Europe's modern art, reflecting
Contimporanuls eclectic agenda and international profile. It hosted samples of works by leading modernists: the Romanians Segal,
Constantin Brâncuși,
Victor Brauner,
János Mattis-Teutsch,
Milița Petrașcu, alongside Arp, Eggeling, Klee, Richter,
Lajos Kassák and
Kurt Schwitters. The exhibit included samples of Janco's work in furniture design, and featured his managerial contribution to a Dada-like opening party, co-produced by him, Maxy, Vinea and journalist
Eugen Filotti. He was also involved in preparing the magazine's theatrical parties, including the 1925 production of
A Merry Death, by
Nikolai Evreinov; Janco was the set and
costume designer, and Eliad the director. An unusual echo of the exhibit came in 1925, when
Contimporanul published a photograph of Brâncuși's
Princess X sculpture. The
Romanian Police saw this as a sexually explicit artwork, and Vinea and Janco were briefly taken into custody. Janco was a dedicated admirer of Brâncuși, visiting him in Paris and writing in
Contimporanul about Brâncuși's "spirituality of form" theories. In their work as cultural campaigners, Vinea and Janco even collaborated with
75 HP, a periodical edited by poet
Ilarie Voronca, which was nominally anti-
Contimporanul and pro-Dada. Janco was also an occasional presence in the pages of
Punct, the Dadaist-Constructivist paper put out by the socialist
Scarlat Callimachi. It was here that he notably published articles on architectural styles and a
lampoon, in
French and
German, titled ''T.S.F. Dialogue entre le bourgeois mort et l'apôtre de la vie nouvelle'' ("Cablegram. The Dialogue between a Dead Bourgeois and the Apostle of New Living"). In addition, his graphic work was popularized by Voronca's other magazine, the Futurist tribune
Integral. Janco was also called upon by authors
Ion Pillat and
Perpessicius to illustrate their
Antologia poeților de azi ("The Anthology of Present-Day Poets"). His portraits of the writers included, drawn in sharply modernist style, were received with amusement by the traditionalist public. In 1926, Janco further antagonized the traditionalists by publishing sensual drawings for
Camil Baltazar's book of erotic poems,
Strigări trupești lîngă glezne ("Bodily Exhortations around the Ankles").
Functionalist breakthrough Some time in the late 1920s, Janco set up an architectural studio
Birou de Studii Moderne (Office of Modern Studies), a partnership with his brother Jules (Iulius), a venture often identified by the name
Marcel Iuliu Iancu, combining the two brothers as one. Heralding the change of architectural tastes with his articles in
Contimporanul, Marcel Janco described Romania's capital as a chaotic, inharmonious, backward town, in which the traffic was hampered by carts and
trams, a city in need of Modernist revolution. Profiting from the building boom of
Greater Romania, and the rising popularity of
functionalism, Janco's
Birou received commissions from 1926 onwards that were occasional and small-scale. Compared with mainstream functionalist architects like
Horia Creangă,
Duiliu Marcu or Jean Monda, the Jancos had a decisive role in popularizing the functionalist versions of Constructivism or Cubism, designing the first examples of this new stylistic approach to be built in Romania. The first clear, though unheralded, expression of Modernism in Romania, was the construction in 1926 of a small apartment building near his earlier houses, also built for his father Herman, with an apartment for Herman, one for Marcel as well as his rooftop studio. The structure simply follows the curved line of the corner lot, the severe elevations devoid of decoration, enlivened only by a triangular bay window and balcony above, and a scheme of different colours (now lost) applied to the three wall areas differentiated by slight variations on depth. A major breakthrough was his Villa for Jean Fuchs, built in 1927 on Negustori Street. Its cosmopolitan owner allowed the artist complete freedom in designing the building, and a budget of 1 million
lei, and he created what is often described as the first Constructivist (and therefore Modernist) structure in Bucharest. The Villa Henri Daniel (1927, demolished) on Strada Ceres returned to the almost unadorned flat facade, enlivened by a play of horizontal and vertical lines, while the Maria Lambru Villa (1928), on Popa Savu Street, was a simplified version of the Fuchs design. The Florica Chihăescu house on
Șoseaua Kiseleff (1929) is surprisingly formal with a central porch below strip windows, and also marks collaboration with Milița Petrașcu from the 1924 exhibition who provided some statuary (now lost). The Villa Bordeanu (1930) on Labirint Street plays with symmetrical formality while the Villa Paul Iluta (1931, altered) employs bold rectangular volumes over three floors, as does the Paul Wexler Villa (1931), on Silvestru and Grigore Mora streets. In 1931 he designed his first tenement/apartment building at Strada Caimatei 20, a small stack of 3 apartments of boldly projecting forms, developed himself for his family with other floors to rent, in the name of his wife Clara Janco. It is thought the studios for his Birou were on the top floor, and the design was published in
Contimporanul in 1932. Two more followed in 1933 on Strada Paleologu next to each other, simpler in conception, with a second one in his wife's name, and one for Jaques Costin - which features a bas relief panel of women working with wool by Militia Pătraşcu by the door. These projects are joined by a private
sanatorium of
Predeal, Janco's only design outside of Bucharest. Built in 1934 at the base of a wooded hill, it has the sweeping horizontals of international streamlined Modernism, with Janco's innovation of diagonally placed rooms creating a striking zigzag effect. Her sister Claude-Simone had died in infancy. By the mid-1920s, Marcel and Lily Janco were estranged: already by the time of their divorce (1930), she was living by herself in a
Brașov home designed by Janco. it was located in
Budeni-Comana,
Giurgiu County. when he took part in selecting new young contributors, such as publicist and art critic
Barbu Brezianu. At that junction, the magazine triumphantly published a "Letter to Janco", in which the formerly traditionalist architect
George Matei Cantacuzino spoke about his colleague's decade-long contribution to the development of Romanian functionalism. Beyond his
Contimporanul affiliation, Janco rallied with the Bucharest collective
Arta Nouă ("New Art"), also joined by Maxy, Brauner, Mattis-Teutsch, Petrașcu,
Nina Arbore, Cornelia Babic-Daniel, Alexandru Brătășanu, Olga Greceanu, Corneliu Michăilescu,
Claudia Millian, Tania Șeptilici and others. Janco and some other regulars of
Contimporanul also reached out to the Surrealist faction at
unu review—Janco is notably mentioned as a "contributor" on the cover of
unu, Summer 1930 issue, where all 8 containing pages were purposefully left blank. Janco prepared woodcuts for the first edition of Vinea's novel
Paradisul suspinelor ("The Paradise of Sobs"), printed with Editura Cultura Națională in 1930, and for Vinea's poems in their magazine versions. His drawings were used in illustrating two volumes of interviews with writers, compiled by
Contimporanul sympathizer
Felix Aderca, and Costin's only volume of prose, the 1931
Exerciții pentru mâna dreaptă ("Right-handed Exercises"). Janco attended the 1930 reunion organized by
Contimporanul in honor of the visiting Futurist
Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and gave a welcoming speech. Marinetti was again praised by the
Contimporanul group (Vinea, Janco, Petrașcu, Costin) in February 1934, in an
open letter stating: "We are soldiers of the same army." These developments created a definitive split in Romania's avant-garde movement, and contributed to
Contimporanuls eventual fall: the Surrealists and socialists at
unu condemned Vinea and the rest for having established, through Marinetti, a connection with the
Italian fascists. After the incidents, Janco's art was openly questioned by
unu contributors such as
Stephan Roll. Although
Contimporanul went bankrupt, an artistic faction of the same name survived until 1936. During the interval, Janco found other backers in the specialized art and architecture magazines, such as
Orașul,
Arta și Orașul,
Rampa,
Ziarul Științelor și al Călătoriilor. The early 1930s also witnessed Janco's participation with the literary and art society
Criterion, whose leader was philosopher
Mircea Eliade. The group was mostly a venue Romania's intellectual youth, interested in redefining the national specificity around modernist values, but also offered a venue for dialogue between the
far right and the
far left. With Maxy, Petrașcu, Mac Constantinescu,
Petre Iorgulescu-Yor, Margareta Sterian and others, Janco represented the art collective at
Criterion, which, in 1933, exhibited at Dalles Hall, Bucharest. The same year, Janco erected a blockhouse for Costin (Paleologu Street, 5), which doubled as his own working address and the administrative office of
Contimporanul. 1934 was the year when Janco returned as architectural theorist, with
Urbanism, nu romantism ("Urbanism, Not Romanticism"), an essay in the review
Orașul. Janco's text restated the need and opportunity for modernist urban planning, especially in Bucharest. The mid-1930s was his most prolific period as an architect, designing more villas, more small apartment buildings, and larger ones as well. is more restrained, with long strip windows the main feature, and another panel by Milita Petraşcu in the lobby. Villas included one for Florica Reich (1936) on Grigore Mora, a simple rectangular volume with a double-height corner cut-out topped by an inventive gridded glass roof, and one for Hermina Hassner (1937), almost square in plan, and with almost the opposite effect, a first floor corner balcony wall pierced by a grid of small circular openings. Together with Margareta Sterian, who became his disciple, Janco was working on artistic projects involving
ceramics and
fresco. In 1936, some works by Janco, Maxy and Petrașcu represented Romania at the Futurist art show in
New York City. Throughout the period, Janco was still on demand as a draftsman: in 1934, his depiction of poet Constantin Nissipeanu opened the first print of Nisspeanu's
Metamorfoze; in 1936, he published a posthumous portrait of writer
Mateiu Caragiale, to illustrate the Perpessicius edition of Caragiale's poems. His prints also served to illustrate
Sadismul adevărului ("The Sadism of Truth"), written by
unu founder
Sașa Pană.
Persecution and departure , 1938 By that time, the Janco family was faced with the rise of
antisemitism, and alarmed by the growth of
fascist movements such as the
Iron Guard. In the 1920s, the
Contimporanul leadership had sustained a
xenophobic attack from the traditionalist review
Țara Noastră. It cited Vinea's
Greek origins as a cause for concern, and described Janco as the "painter of the cylinder", and an alien, cosmopolitan, Jew. That objection to Janco's work, and to
Contimporanul in general, was also taken up in 1926 by the anti-modernist essayist
I. E. Torouțiu.
Criterion itself split in 1934, when some of its members openly rallied with the Iron Guard, and the radical press accused the remaining ones of promoting
pederasty through their public performances. Josine was expelled from
Catholic school in 1935, the reason invoked being that her father was a Jew. For Marcel Janco, the events were an opportunity to discuss his own assimilation into Romanian society: in one of his conferences, he defined himself as "an artist who is a Jew", rather than "a Jewish artist". When the antisemitic
National Christian Party took power, Janco was coming to terms with the
Zionist ideology, describing the
Land of Israel as the "cradle" and "salvation" of Jews the world over. At Budeni, he and Costin hosted
Betar paramilitaries, who were attempting to organize a Jewish self-defense movement. Although Jules and his family emigrated soon after the visit, Marcel returned to Bucharest and, shortly before Jewish art was officially censored, had his one last exhibit there, together with Milița Petrașcu. In 1939, the
Nazi-aligned
Ion Gigurtu cabinet enforced
racial discrimination throughout the land, and, as a consequence,
Jaquesmara was
confiscated by the state. Janco was still undecided. He was still in Romania when the Iron Guard established its
National Legionary State. He was receiving and helping Jewish refugees from
Nazi-occupied Europe, and hearing from them about the
concentration camp system, but refused offers to emigrate into a neutral or
Allied country. The Străulești Abattoir murders and the stories of Jewish survivors also inspired several of Janco's drawings. One of the victims of the Abattoir massacre was Costin's brother Michael Goldschlager. He was kidnapped from his house by Guardsmen, Janco later stated that, over the course of a few days, the pogrom had made him a militant Jew. With clandestine assistance from
England, The painter found his first employment as architect for Tel Aviv's city government, sharing the office with a
Holocaust survivor who informed him about the genocide in
occupied Poland.
In British Palestine and Israel During his years in British Palestine, Marcel Janco became a noted participant in the development of
local Jewish art. He was one of the four Romanian Jewish artists who marked the development of Zionist arts and crafts before 1950—the others were Jean David,
Reuven Rubin, Jacob Eisenscher; David, who was Janco's friend in Bucharest, joined him in Tel Aviv after an adventurous trip and internment in
Cyprus. In particular, Janco was an early influence on three Zionist artists who had arrived to Palestine from other regions:
Avigdor Stematsky,
Yehezkel Streichman and
Joseph Zaritsky. He was soon recognized as a leading presence in the artist community, receiving Tel Aviv Municipality's
Dizengoff Prize in 1945, and again in 1946. These contacts were not interrupted by the
1948 Arab–Israeli War, and Janco was a figure of prominence in the art scene of independent Israel. The new nation enlisted his services as planner, and he was assigned to the team of
Arieh Sharon, being tasked with designing and preserving the
Israeli national parks. As a result of his intervention, in 1949 the area of
Old Jaffa was turned into an artist-friendly community. Marcel Janco began his main Israeli project in May 1953, after he had been mandated by the Israeli government to prospect the mountainous regions and delimit a new national park south of
Mount Carmel. In his own account (since disputed by others), Janco's main residence continued to be in the neighborhood of
Ramat Aviv. Janco became the site's first mayor, reorganizing it into a utopian society,
art colony and tourist attraction, and instituted the strict code of requirements for one's settlement in Ein Hod. '' colleagues at the
Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 1953 Also in the 1950s, Janco was a founding member of
Ofakim Hadashim ("New Horizons") group, comprising Israeli painters committed to
abstract art, and headed by Zaritsky. Although he shared the artistic vision, Janco probably did not approve of Zaritsky's rejection of all
narrative art and, in 1956, left the group. He continued to explore new media, and, together with artisan Itche Mambush, he created a series of reliefs and
tapestries. Janco also drew in
pastel, and created humorous illustrations to
Don Quixote. he won the
Israel Prize of 1967, in recognition of his work as painter. In 1960, Janco's presence in Ein Hod was challenged by the returning Palestinians, who tried to reclaim the land. He organized a community defense force, headed by sculptor Tuvia Iuster, which guarded Ein Hod until
Israel Police intervened against the protesters. Janco was generally tolerant of those Palestinians who set up the small rival community of
Ein Hawd: he notably maintained contacts with tribal leader Abu Hilmi and with Arab landscape artist Muin Zaydan Abu al-Hayja, but the relationship between the two villages was generally distant. Janco has also been described as "disinterested" in the fate of his Arab neighbors. Costin later left Israel, settling in France. Janco himself made efforts to preserve a link with Romania, and sent albums to his artist friends beyond the
Iron Curtain. He met with folklorist and former political prisoner
Harry Brauner, Also in 1981, a selection of Janco's drawings of Holocaust crimes was issued with the
Am Oved album
Kav Haketz/On the Edge. Among his final appearances in public was a 1984 interview with
Schweizer Fernsehen station, in which he revisited his Dada activities. ==Work==