Groupe de femmes

Groupe de femmes, also called Groupe de trois femmes, or Groupe de trois personnages, is an early Cubist sculpture created circa 1911 by the Hungarian avant-garde, sculptor, and graphic artist Joseph Csaky (1888–1971). This sculpture formerly known from a black and white photograph (Galerie René Reichard) had been erroneously entitled Deux Femmes (Two Women), as the image captured on an angle showed only two figures. An additional photograph found in the Csaky family archives shows a frontal view of the work, revealing three figures rather than two. Csaky's sculpture was exhibited at the 1912 Salon d'Automne, and the 1913 Salon des Indépendants, Paris. A photograph taken of Salle XI in sitiu at the 1912 Salon d'Automne and published in L'Illustration, 12 October 1912, p. 47, shows Groupe de femmes exhibited alongside the works of Jean Metzinger, František Kupka, Francis Picabia, Amedeo Modigliani and Henri Le Fauconnier. At the 1913 Salon des Indépendants Groupe de femmes was exhibited in the company works by Fernand Léger, Jean Metzinger, Robert Delaunay, André Lhote, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Jacques Villon and Wassily Kandinsky. The whereabouts of Groupe de femmes is unknown and the sculpture is presumed to have been destroyed. 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.