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(b Rampur, 1916; d Lahore, 1975).

Pakistani painter. A seminal figure, Shakir ‛Ali introduced Cubism to Lahore in 1952. His style quickly became fashionable there, was adopted in Karachi and dominated the art scene for more than a decade (see Pakistan, Islamic Republic of §III).

Shakir ‛Ali first studied painting at the Ukil Brothers Studio in Delhi. In 1938, after a year in that city, he joined the J. J. School of Art, Bombay, which promoted the British system of art education—drawing from cast and copying Old Masters. From the school’s director, Charles Gerrard, Shakir learned mural painting and was introduced to Impressionism. He also learned about indigenous art such as that at Ajanta (see Ajanta, §2, (i)) and the modern work of Roy, Jamini and Sher-Gil, Amrita.

After receiving a diploma in fine art from the Slade School of Art, London, Shakir ‛Ali studied with André Lhote in France. Moving to Prague, he joined the School of Industrial Design and studied textile design. From Prague, Shakir went to Lahore, where he was appointed Professor and head of the art department at the Mayo School of Arts. In ...

[Aleksandr ]

(b Kiev, Ukraine, May 30, 1887; d New York, Feb 25, 1964).

Ukrainian sculptor, active in Paris and in the USA. He began studying painting and sculpture at the School of Art in Kiev in 1902 but was forced to leave in 1905 after criticizing the academicism of his instructors. In 1906 he went to Moscow, where, according to the artist, he participated in some group exhibitions (Archipenko, p. 68). In 1908 he established himself in Paris, where he rejected the most favoured contemporary sculptural styles, including the work of Rodin. After only two weeks of formal instruction at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts he left to teach himself sculpture by direct study of examples in the Musée du Louvre. By 1910 Archipenko was exhibiting with the Cubists at the Salon des Indépendants, and his work was shown at the Salon d’Automne from 1911 to 1913.

A variety of cultural sources lies behind Archipenko’s work. He remained indebted throughout his career to the spiritual values and visual effects found in the Byzantine culture of his youth and had a strong affinity for ancient Egyptian, Gothic, and primitive art that co-existed with the influence of modernist styles such as Cubism and Futurism....

(b Geneva, Feb 25, 1872; d Lausanne, Jan 1, 1938).

Swiss painter and multimedia artist . From 1890/91 she studied under Hugues Bovy (1841–1903) and Denise Sarkissof at the Ecole d’Art in Geneva. A travel scholarship enabled her to study in Munich for a year. From 1904 until the outbreak of World War I Bailly lived in Paris, where she associated with Cubist artists, including Albert Gleizes, Jean Metzinger, Fernand Léger, Marie Laurencin and Sonia Lewitska (1882–1914). From 1905 to 1926 she exhibited regularly at the Salon d’Automne. From 1906 to 1910 her work was influenced by Fauvism, and from 1910 she became interested in Cubism and Futurism: Equestrian Fantasy with Pink Lady (1913; Zurich, Gal. Strunskaja) is reminiscent of the work of Gino Severini or Franz Marc in its rhythmic movement and planar fragmentation of horses and riders into coloured patterns. Other paintings of this period that are also indebted to these movements include ...

(b Velké Lišice, nr Chlumec nad Cidlinou, Jan 22, 1883; d Prague, March 27, 1979).

Czech painter, writer and theorist. In 1902–4 he studied at the Prague School of Applied Art and in 1904–7 at the Academy of Fine Arts. After visiting Dresden, Berlin, Munich and Paris, he returned to Prague and joined Eight, the, which had been set up by his former fellow students; he exhibited at the group’s second show in 1908. His early work was influenced by the ideas of Bohumil Kubišta, with whom he shared a workshop. Although basically an uncomplicated, sensual painter, he attempted to keep well informed about contemporary artistic trends. In 1910–14 he became a fervent devotee of Cubism and, together with Emil Filla, adhered faithfully to the style of Picasso and Braque. He was one of the founders (1911) of the Group of Plastic Artists and contributed theoretical articles to its journal, Umělecký měsíčník. No consistent reconstruction of his paintings before World War I can be made because most of his Cubist works were later destroyed. His process of crystallization in relation to the painting of space culminated in ...

(b Santander, March 6, 1881; d Paris, April 15, 1932).

Spanish painter. She was marked from birth by a physical deformity, which determined her bitter destiny. In 1903 she moved to Madrid to become a painter, studying successively under the painters Emilio Sala (1850–1910), Fernando Alvarez de Sotomayor (1875–1960) and Manuel Benedito (1875–1963). She won a grant in 1909 to pursue her studies in Paris, where she attended the Académie Vitti; she was taught by Hermengildo Anglada Camarasa and later by Kees van Dongen, whose example helped free her from the constraints of her academic training in Spain. During this period she came into contact with Cubism, meeting Juan Gris and Jacques Lipchitz, both of whom influenced her later work. Until 1916, however, her work remained academic in spirit, with an emphasis on firm draughtsmanship and sombre tonalities.

On her return to Madrid in 1914, Blanchard participated in Pintores integros, an exhibition organized by the writer Ramón Gómez de la Serna, in which works by Lipchitz and Diego Rivera were also included. After teaching drawing for a short period in Salamanca, in ...

(b Argenteuil-sur-Seine, Seine-et-Oise, May 13, 1882; d Paris, Aug 31, 1963).

French painter, collagist, draughtsman, printmaker and sculptor. His most important contribution to the history of art was his role in the development of what became known as Cubism. In this Braque’s work is intertwined with that of his collaborator Pablo Picasso, especially from 1908 to 1912. For a long time it was impossible to distinguish their respective contributions to Cubism, for example in the development of Collage, while Picasso’s fame and notoriety overshadowed the quiet life of Braque.

His family moved in 1890 to Le Havre, where his father had a painting and decorating business. In 1897 Braque entered the municipal art school, where he met and became friendly with Othon Friesz and Raoul Dufy. He joined them in Paris at the turn of the century and, after a year of army service, settled in Montmartre in 1902. He began to visit the Musée du Louvre, where he encountered van Gogh’s work, and that October he began to study at the Académie Humbert, where his fellow students included Francis Picabia and Marie Laurencin. The following year he studied briefly with ...

(b Long Island, VA, March 25, 1881; d New York, Nov 12, 1936).

American painter. He studied in New York under William Merritt Chase (1901) and Robert Henri (1903). In 1903 he went to Paris and was organizer, with Sarah Stein, of Matisse’s school. From 1912 he was closely associated with Sonia Delaunay and Robert Delaunay. He remained in Paris until 1936, when he returned to New York, committing suicide a few months later.

Bruce destroyed much of his own work: only c. 100 of his paintings remain. His oeuvre can be divided into four periods. The first, lasting until c. 1907, reflects the influence of Henri in the bravura brushwork and deep tonalities of such portraits as Littleton Maclurg Wickham (1903; Julia Wickham Porter priv. col., see Agee and Rose, p. 14). In the second period, from 1907 to 1912, Bruce painted a few landscapes and portraits, but predominant in this period are still-lifes in a style reflecting an interest in Cézanne and his study with Matisse. In these works, for example ...

(b Hronov, March 23, 1887; d Bergen-Belsen, April 1945).

Czech painter, printmaker and writer. He studied weaving (1901–3) in Vrchlabí and then from 1904 to 1910 decorative painting at the School of Applied Arts in Prague, where he was influenced by the highly decorative art of the Secession. During this period he wrote stories with his brother, the novelist Karel Čapek (1890–1938). In 1910 they went to Paris for nearly a year, where Josef Čapek studied painting at the Académie Colarossi and became a friend of Apollinaire. In 1911 he and his brother co-founded the Cubist-orientated Group of Plastic Artists. Čapek attempted to modify Cubism by introducing elements of Expressionism and Symbolism. His efforts dumbfounded some members of the group, and in 1912 he and various of his friends parted company with it. From 1915 he began to achieve a synthesis of Cubism, Neo-classicism and a personal symbolism (e.g. the Man in the Hat, 1915...

[Shagal, Mark (Zakharovich); Shagal, Moses]

(b Vitebsk [now Viciebsk], Belarus’, July 7, 1887; d Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Alpes-Maritimes, March 28, 1985).

French painter, draughtsman, printmaker, designer, sculptor, ceramicist, and writer of Belarusian birth. A prolific artist, Chagall excelled in the European tradition of subject painting and distinguished himself as an expressive colourist. His work is noted for its consistent use of folkloric imagery and its sweetness of colour, and it is characterized by a style that, although developed in the years before World War I, underwent little progression throughout his long career (see.g. I and the Village, 1911; New York, MOMA). Though he preferred to be known as a Belarusian artist, following his exile from the Soviet Union in 1923 he was recognized as a major figure of the Ecole de Paris, especially in the later 1920s and the 1930s. In his last years he was regarded as a leading artist in stained glass.

Chagall spent his childhood, admirably recorded in his autobiography, in a warm Hassidic family in Vitebsk [now Viciebsk], with frequent visits to his grandfather’s village home. He attended the traditional Jewish school but afterwards succeeded in entering the local Russian high school, where he excelled in geometry and drawing and determined to become an artist. At first he studied locally in the studio of ...

(Vasil’yevich)

(b Valayka Station, Novgorod Province [now Lykoshino, Tver’ region], 1878; d en route from Germany to Paris, Feb 22, 1936).

Russian graphic artist, ceramicist, painter and designer. In 1896 he studied at the School of Drawing at the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and in 1897 at Maria Tenisheva’s art school in St Petersburg, where he worked under Il’ya Repin until 1900. In 1904 he worked in the pottery studio at the Abramtsevo colony. At this period he employed Art Nouveau elements in his work, as in the majolica decorations for the Hotel Metropole, St Petersburg (early 1900s) and the majolica panel St George Triumphant for the Municipal Primary School on Bol’shaya Tsaritsynskaya [now Bol’shaya Pirogovskaya] Street in Moscow (1909). He took up book illustration in 1904 and his graphic talent flourished in the 1910s. His work for Apollon was particularly successful, his illustrations first appearing in its pages in 1911. Chekhonin soon became an original and skilful artist, using a sharp and elastic line interspersed with dots. From ...

(b Písek, Oct 13, 1880; d Karlovy Vary, July 6, 1956).

Czech architect. He studied architecture at the Technical University, Prague, and later at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna, under Otto Wagner. In 1911, together with Josef Gočár, Pavel Janák, Vlastislav Hofman (1884–1964) and others, he founded the Group of Plastic Artists, Prague, which sought to develop a more artistic approach to architecture. He subsequently became one of the leading exponents of Czech Cubism in architecture, which concentrated on the sculptural articulation of façades with abstract, prismatic forms. He designed four houses (1911–13; for illustration) below Vyšehrad Hill in Prague with faceted façades that are among the best examples of Czech Cubism. At about the same time, however, he produced drawings for austere, geometric, undecorated façades that anticipated the later development of Czech Purism. Buildings he designed in the Purist style included an office building (1920–21) in Jindřišska Street and a building (1923–5) for the ...

[József]

(b Szeged, March 18, 1888; d Paris, May 1, 1971).

French sculptor of Hungarian birth. He studied at the school of Decorative Arts in Budapest from 1904 to 1905. In 1908 he went to Paris and settled in the block of studios La Ruche, where he was a neighbour of Fernand Léger, Alexander Archipenko, Henri Laurens, Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine. He joined the Cubist movement in 1911, and he was included by Marcel Duchamp in the Salon de la Section d’Or in 1912. Only three of his pre-1914 sculptures survive, two Heads (e.g. 1914; Saint-Etienne, Mus. A. & Indust.) and a Clothed Figure (1913; Paris, Pompidou), which show a progression from a style still influenced by Rodin to a blocklike simplification and Cubist faceting. Volunteering for the French Army in 1914, he was unable to make any more sculptures until his return to Paris in 1919, when he acquired French citizenship; his immediate post-war work was much more abstract. After making in ...

(b Paris, April 12, 1885; d Montpellier, Oct 25, 1941).

French painter, printmaker and writer. Taking Cubism as one of his points of departure, he first developed a vocabulary of colour planes only distantly dependent on observed motifs, and by the 1930s he had arrived at a purely self-sufficient language of geometric forms. He remained active as a theoretician until the end of his life, leaving a legacy of influential writings on the development of abstract art.

Delaunay was apprenticed from 1902 to 1904 to the Ronsin stage-painting studios in Paris, but he was fundamentally self-taught as a painter from 1904. His early paintings are indebted to Post-Impressionism, especially to Gauguin, as in Still-life: Vases and Objects (1907; Paris, Pompidou). His rapid absorption of avant-garde tendencies is revealed in a sequence of early self-portraits. The first (1905–6; Paris, Pompidou) is a literal representation of his appearance against an almost abstract background, with violent, Fauve-influenced colour contrasts of greens and violets and their complementaries red and yellow. On the reverse of the canvas is ...

(b Rome, June 29, 1927; d Perugia, May 17, 2005).

Italian painter. He began painting shortly after World War II. His first works were influenced by Cubism and show a knowledge of the work of artists in Rome who were at that time engaged in the figurative renewal of Italian art. However, the influence of Futurist works and his acquaintance with the Russian avant-garde and De Stijl led Dorazio to adopt an abstract idiom. In 1947, with Giulio Turcato, Pietro Consagra, Carla Accardi, Ugo Attardi (b 1923), Antonio Sanfilippo (1923–80), Mino Guerrini (b 1927) and Achille Perilli (b 1927), he founded the Forma group, declaring himself to be a ‘formalist’ and to have the aim of creating ‘objective abstract forms’ in which ‘the form is both the means and the end’. He made frequent visits to France and to the USA, where he exhibited for the first time in 1950 at the Museum of Non-objective Painting in New York. Here he came into contact with the American abstract painters and with action painting, both of which played a key role in helping him perfect his own form of abstraction. The USA became very important to him, and during the 1950s he made several prolonged visits there, returning to teach at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, in ...

(b Damville, Eure, Nov 5, 1876; d Cannes, Oct 7, 1918).

French sculptor and draughtsman. The second son of a Normandy notary, he played a central role in the development of modern aesthetics, as did his elder brother Jacques Villon and his younger brother (Henri-Robert-)Marcel Duchamp. He came from an educated family and was an assiduous student at secondary school in Rouen; in 1894 he registered at the Faculté de Médecine in Paris, where he attended classes for several years. Rheumatic fever forced him to break off his studies in 1898 just before completion and left him immobilized for a considerable length of time; this unforeseen event altered the whole course of his life. During this period of enforced leisure (1899–1900), he modelled small statuettes (of subjects such as familiar animals and female figures), discovering his true vocation as a sculptor. He was essentially self-taught and rapidly attained a high level of mastery and maturity. He settled in Paris ...

(b Culan, Cher, May 2, 1904; d June 27, 2001).

French painter, draughtsman and lithographer. Like Jean Bazaine and Charles Lapicque, Estève belongs to the generation whose early work was influenced by late Cubism. He himself particularly admired Fernand Léger. Estève became aware of his vocation extremely early in life and had already begun to paint when he arrived in Paris at the age of 15. Extreme attention to execution, already evident in early paintings such as Still-life with Basket of Eggs (1927; Paris, Conchon priv. col., see Vallier and others, p. 8), was to characterize all his work. Gradually Estève abandoned post-Cubist rigour and the sharp, flat colour that he used until the early 1930s in works such as First Steps (1930; Bourges, Mus. Estève); he began to follow Pierre Bonnard’s example, working towards softened forms enriched by a profusion of colour, as in The Meal (1937; Bourges, Mus. Estève). The problem of subject-matter concerned Estève increasingly as abstraction came to dominate the post-war period. In his paintings the powerful presence of colour invading the entire composition made the subject less and less legible, as in ...

(Alexandrovna)

(b Belostok, Russia [now Białystok, Poland], Jan 6, 1882; d Fontenay-aux-Roses, Paris, March 17, 1949).

Russian painter and designer of Polish birth. After graduating in 1906 from art school in Kiev, Exter married in 1908 and went to Paris, where she studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. The following year she rented a studio in Paris and became acquainted with Picasso, Braque, Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob and with the Italian Futurists Filippo Marinetti, Giovanni Papini and Ardengo Soffici (with whom she shared a studio in 1914). In Paris she also attended the Vasil’yeva Free Russian Academy, where Fernand Léger gave two important lectures on modern art. In the years 1909–14 Exter travelled extensively between Paris, Moscow and Kiev, playing an important role in disseminating Cubist and Futurist ideas among the Russian avant-garde. She participated in many important avant-garde exhibitions in Russia and the Ukraine, including David Burlyuk’s Link (Kiev, 1908), the first and second Izdebsky Salons (Odessa, 1909–10; Kiev and St Petersburg, ...

(Rafailovich)

(b Moscow, Nov 8, 1886; d Moscow, Oct 1, 1958).

Russian painter. He studied under Konstantin Yuon and in the studio of Il’ya Mashkov (1904–5), then at the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. In 1909 he exhibited with Golden Fleece and in 1910 was a founder-member of the avant-garde exhibiting society, the Jack of Diamonds, of which he remained an active member until its dissolution in 1916. Fal’k was well known for his portraits and still-lifes of this period. His elongated seated figures of 1913 reveal a study of Cézanne, while the portraits and still-lifes of 1914 betray the influence of Picasso’s early Cubist work. The Portrait of the Tatar Journalist Midkhata Refatov (1915; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.) shows his mature style in the Cubist idiom.

After the 1917 Revolution, Fal’k taught painting at Svomas (Free Art Studios) (1918–20) and Vkhutemas (Higher Artistic and Technical Workshops) (1920–28...

(b Chropyně, Moravia [now Czech Republic], April 4, 1882; d Prague, Oct 6, 1953).

Czech painter, printmaker, sculptor, writer and collector. After a short period at a business school and in an insurance office in Brno, he became a student at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1903). In 1904 he won the Academy’s first prize. At the end of the year he set out on a lengthy journey to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy. He became absorbed in the Old Masters, especially Rembrandt. His own style passed from Post-Impressionism to a more expressive dominance of colour. In 1907 he took part in the first exhibition of The Eight (see Eight, the) with a programme painting, the Reader of Dostoyevsky (Prague, N.G., Trade Fair Pal.), partly influenced by the Munch exhibition in Prague in 1905. At the same time the picture is a very personal manifesto reflecting the Angst and scepticism of his generation. At the second exhibition of The Eight in ...