PEVSNER (Antoine). Autograph letter signed to a "dear collea - Lot 35

Lot n° 35
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PEVSNER (Antoine). Autograph letter signed to a "dear collea - Lot 35
PEVSNER (Antoine). Autograph letter signed to a "dear colleague" [to the director of the magazine Art d'aujourd'hui, André Bloc]. Paris, [1951]. 4pp. in-folio. Important letter on the Russian artistic avant-garde. "In your monthly review "Art d'aujourd'hui" (n°3, January 1951), you entrusted Mer DelMarle with the task of drawing up a history of Constructivism... I can assure you that I found his approach too opportunistic and hurtful to the names he cited. Some of these artists cannot defend themselves because they are dead. As for those who made a real contribution to the "constructivism" movement, it is impossible for me to seem to approve of the conduct of the author of this article without becoming an accomplice in the eyes of all those who have followed and read many times the Constructivism manifesto which was published in the press all over the world under the signature of Gabo and Pevsner [his brother Nathanaël Pevsner had taken the pseudonym of Naum Gabo]... Gabo and I stated in our exhibition catalogs and in the press that Gabo and Pevsner should not be confused with the so-called "Constructivists" who, having split from the common core in 1920, had formed a group whose aim was to fight against true art in favor of crassly materialistic utilitarianism. It's true that we influenced all the artists cited by DelMarle in the article in question, but it's inaccurate to state that "Tatlin, Malevich, Lissitzky, Rodchenko, etc. were grouped around this manifesto". It was Tatlin and Rodchenko who formed the utilitarian art group and eventually fell in with those cited by MerDelMarle in applied art. They never grouped around our manifesto or signed it. As for Malevich (my great friend who died in 1935), this is a real betrayal of an artist of great intelligence and true creative spirit, who influenced a whole generation of artists in Europe. Malevich himself created an ideology, "Suprematism", but he neither signed our manifesto nor adhered to our ideology. It's not true that Lissitzky was one of those who grouped around our manifesto. Lissitzky was greatly influenced by Malevich and Constructivism, but in the end he found his own 'Proun' ideology..." One of the great artists of Russian Constructivism, Antoine Pevsner (1884-1962) first worked as a painter before turning to the production of volume objects, mainly metal. He settled in Paris in 1923 and became a French citizen in 1930.
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