Groupe de femmes

Groupe de femmes is a plaster sculpture (as many of Csaky's works of the period), carved in a vertical format with unknown dimensions. The work represents three standing nudes, classical in theme (i.e., Les trois graces), yet executed in an abstract stylized Cubist vocabulary, in opposition to the softness and curvilinearity of Nabis, Symbolist or Art Nouveau forms. The dominating central figure is flanked by a woman to her left and another to the right, positioned slightly behind. Two of the women are holding drapery that flows rigidly down to their legs to the base of the sculpture. The figures are constructed with a robust, muscular build, distilled in the form of almost androgynous stature, together forming a tight cohesive mass. The heads and features of the figures, seen in both profile and frontal views, are treated as a series of faceted planar forms that communicated in a strange novel 3-dimensional language; one that at the time broke away from every natural and rational convention. , Head (Tête), 1913, Plaster lost Albert Elsen characterized Csaky's Head sculpture of 1913 in a way that applies to the heads depicted in Groupe de femmes: His Head is a brutal asymmetrical reconstruction of the motif that submerges featural identity by a logic of thrusting planar forms. The result, unlike that of Filla, is the redesigning of the head that is no longer dependent upon a frontal confrontation for the most revealing view, and the consistency of this sculptural context discourages trying to project missing features on the blank planes. The blunt force-fulness with which the head is shaped and thrusts in and out suggests that Csaky had looked not only at Picasso's earlier painting and sculpture, but also at African tribal masks whose exaggerated features and simplified design accommodated the need to be seen at a distance and to evoke strong feeling. (Elsen) Csaky's heads of the period partake in the "stylized, hieratic, nonportrait tradition of tribal and ancient art", writes Edith Balas, "in which there is a total lack of interest in depicting psychological traits". Csaky's Groupe de femmes and the Head (1913) "are lost sculptures that testify to Csaky's early immersion in cubism". ==History==

This works was likely realized at Csaky's studio in La Ruche; the artist enclave of Montparnasse, among many members of the Parisian avant-garde. From the outset of the 20th-century Paris was the art center of the world, where artists came to live and work from all parts of Europe and beyond: In Groupe de femmes Csaky already showed a new way of representing nature, and the unwillingness to revert to classical, academic or traditional methods of representation. The complex syntax observed in Groupe de femmes was born out of an increasing sense of contemporary dynamism, out of the rhythm, balance, harmony and powerful geometric qualities of Egyptian art, of African art, early Cycladic art, Gothic art, and of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Auguste Rodin, Gustave Courbet, Paul Gauguin, Georges Seurat and Paul Cézanne. Csaky wrote of the direction his art had taken during the crucial years: There was no question which was my way. True, I was not alone, but in the company of several artists who came from Eastern Europe. I joined the cubists in the Académie de La Palette, which became the sanctuary of the new direction in art. On my part I did not want to imitate anyone or anything. This is why I joined the cubists movement. (Joseph Csaky) ==Works exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne==

• Joseph Csaky exhibited the sculptures Groupe de femmes, 1911-1912 (location unknown), Portrait de M.S.H., no. 91 (location unknown), and ''Danseuse (Femme à l'éventail, Femme à la cruche)'' no. 405 (location unknown) • Jean Metzinger entered three works: Dancer in a café (entitled Danseuse), La Plume Jaune (The Yellow Feather), ''Femme à l'Éventail (Woman with a Fan) (Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York), hung in the decorative arts section inside La Maison Cubiste (the Cubist House''). • Francis Picabia, 1912, La Source (The Spring) (Museum of Modern Art, New York) • Fernand Léger exhibited La Femme en Bleu (Woman in Blue), 1912 (Kunstmuseum, Basel) and Le passage à niveau (The Level Crossing), 1912 (Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, Switzerland) • Roger de La Fresnaye, Les Baigneuse (The bathers) 1912 (The National Gallery, Washington) and Les joueurs de cartes (Card Players) • Henri Le Fauconnier, The Huntsman (Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, Netherlands) and Les Montagnards attaqués par des ours (Mountaineers Attacked by Bears) 1912 (Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design). • Albert Gleizes, ''l'Homme au Balcon (Man on a Balcony, Portrait of Dr. Théo Morinaud)'', 1912 (Philadelphia Museum of Art), also exhibited at the Armory Show, New York, Chicago, Boston, 1913. • André Lhote, Le jugement de Paris, 1912 (Private collection) • František Kupka, Amorpha, Fugue à deux couleurs (Fugue in Two Colors), 1912 (Narodni Galerie, Prague), and Amorpha Chromatique Chaude. • Alexander Archipenko, Family Life, 1912, sculpture (destroyed) • Amedeo Modigliani, exhibited four sculptures of elongated and highly stylized heads ==Exhibitions==

• Salon d'Automne, Paris, 1 October - 8 November 1912 (not listed in the catalogue but known to have been exhibited from a photograph taken of Salle XI in sitiu at the 1912 Salon d'Automne and published in ''L'Illustration'', 12 October 1912, p. 47). • Salon des Indépendants (Salon de la Société des Artistes Indépendants), Paris, 1913, listed in the catalogue as Groupe de femmes (plaster). • Galerie Moos, Geneva, 1920 (no number). ==Literature==

• René Reichard, Joseph Csaky, Frankfurt, 1988, n. 14. • Billy Klüver and Julie Martin, Kiki de Montparnasse, Flammarion, 1989, salle XI, rep. p. 47. • Edith Balas, Joseph Csaky, A Pioneer of Modern Sculpture, American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, PA., 1998, fig. 5, rep. p. 23. • Félix Marcilhac, József Csáky, Du cubisme historique à la figuration réaliste, catalogue raisonné des sculptures, Les Editions de l'Amateur, Paris, 2007. rep. p. 314 (1912-FM.14) ==Related works==

Image:Cycladic harp player.jpg|Early Cycladic art II period, Harp Player, marble, H 13,5 cm, W 5,7 cm, D 10,9 cm, Cycladic figurine, Bronze Age, early spedos type, Badisches Landesmuseum, Karlsruhe, Germany File:Les Trois Graces LP 5.jpg|Les Trois Graces, Marble, exhibited at the 1831 Salon. The plaster model was finished by 1825, The Louvre, Paris, Department of Sculptures, Richelieu, ground floor, room 32 File:Auguste Rodin Raphael Trois Graces Gsell 265.jpg|Raphaël, Les Trois Graces, cited by Auguste Rodin. In ''L'Art'', interview by Paul Gsell, Grasset, 1911, page 265 File:Three Graces Met 2010.260.jpg|The Three Graces. Copie artwork of the Imperial period after a Greek original of the 2nd century BC, Metropolitan Museum of Art File:Louvre-Lens - L'Europe de Rubens - 148 - Les Trois Grâces.JPG|L'Europe de Rubens, Les Trois Grâces File:Trois baigneuses, par Paul Cézanne, Musée du Petit Palais.jpg|Paul Cézanne, Trois baigneuses, 1879–1882, oil on canvas, 42 x 55 cm, Petit Palais, Paris File:Auguste Rodin, The three shades (Les Trois Ombres), for the top of The Gates of Hell, before 1886, plaster.jpg|Auguste Rodin, The three shades ("Les Trois Ombres"), for the top of The Gates of Hell, before 1886, plaster File:Paul Gauguin, 1894, Oviri (Sauvage), partially glazed stoneware, 75 x 19 x 27 cm, Musée d'Orsay.jpg|Paul Gauguin, 1894, Oviri (Sauvage), partially glazed stoneware, 75 x 19 x 27 cm, Musée d'Orsay, Paris Image:Alexander Archipenko, 1912, Le Repos, Armory Show post card, 1913.jpg|Alexander Archipenko, 1912, Le Repos, Armory Show post card, 1913 Image:Alexander Archipenko, La Vie Familiale, Family Life, 1912.jpg|Alexander Archipenko, 1912, La Vie Familiale (Family Life). Exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne, Paris and the 1913 Armory Show in New York, Chicago and Boston. The original sculpture (approx. six feet tall) accidentally destroyed Image:Joseph Csaky, Head, 1913, Plaster lost. Photo René Richard, Joseph Csáky, Frankfurt, 1988.jpg|Joseph Csaky, Head (self-portrait), 1913, Plaster lost. Photo published in Montjoie, 1914 File:Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, 1914, Boy with a Coney (Boy with a rabbit), marble.jpg|Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, 1914, Boy with a Coney (Boy with a rabbit), marble ==Notes and references==