Joseph Csaky,
Hungarian/ French 1888-1971;
La Liseuse, 1938;
Bronze, signed and numbered...

Joseph Csaky,
Hungarian/ French 1888-1971;

La Liseuse, 1938;

Bronze, signed and numbered HC1 on the base, stamped with the Blanchet foundry stamp and marked AC (Atelier Csaky), length 90.5cm(ARR)

Provenance: Galerie Vallois, No.9802 3085 ; Private Collection, London

Note: This work is a posthumous edition from the Blanchet-Landowski Foundry in Paris, after the original work of 1920. Considered one of the most important sculptors of the 20th Century, Csákys present sculpture shows his more figurative style found towards the second half of his artistic career. He initially studied in Budapest before moving to Paris in 1908, basing himself in a studio at La Ruche where his neighbours included Alexander Archipenko, Marc Chagall, Henri Laurens, Fernand Léger, and Chaim Soutine. Picasso and Braque had just begun experimenting with Cubism, and Csáky and Archipenko were among the first artists to create Cubist sculptures.

After volunteering for the French Army in World War I, Csáky became a French citizen. He continued to produce accomplished Cubist sculptures after the war, while also engaging with the practices of Purism - a movement opposed to Cubism. From the mid-1920s there is a marked transition in the forms of his sculptures, with his preference towards a more figurative style influenced in part by the Greek korai.

Csáky took part in some of the most prominent exhibitions of avant-garde art in Paris, including those at the Société Nationale des Beaux-arts (191011), the Salon de la Section dOr (1911), the Cubist Room of the Salon dAutomne (1911, 1912), and the Salon des Indépendants (1912). His work was later shown in group exhibitions at the Galerie Léonce Rosenberg, Paris (1921), Palais des Beaux-arts, Brussels (1940), Musée de Bordeaux, Paris (1973) and Musée Bourdelle, Paris (1977).