Archipenko Horseman

Forming and shaping a horse is the greatest challenge for an artist. As Raymond Duchamp Villon was able to represent the strength and workability of the horse as the engine of the industrial and war machine, Archipenko captured the thousand-year-long intellectual, spiritual and physical partnership between the horse and the man in a glorious arch. The spirituality of Archipenko was able to capture and represent that was desired by the art for thousands of years. By representing the coexistence of spirit and form so brilliantly, Archipenko presented an irreproducible gift to the world, that is unique in the history of the art of sculpture.

The artistic work of Archipenko can be divided into three periods.

During his European era in the 1910s-’20s he stood out as a genius of his time with his new views, shapes and ideas. The Horseman is an intellectual masterpiece of this era.

His second period began with his emigration to the United States and lasted until his death in 1964. During these years his work can be characterized by being spent and barren, he mostly worked on the recreation of pieces from his European period that had disappeared or had been destroyed.

His new pieces of art, like The Queen of Sheba and the King Solomon were just grey shades of his pristine brilliance.

It is often mentioned in professional lectures, that Archipenko is the Picasso of 20th century sculpture.

The main difference between these two geniuses, though, is that while Picasso was the creator of the spirit of the age himself, Archipenko was created by the spirit of the age. This fact is justified by his spent and less original work in America.

The third period of his work is often called the Grey era, when museums were flooded by Archipenko-copies, that created the foundation of a closed, vertical and horizontal business cartel-system, that ignores universal trademark protection and floods the artwork market with mould copies. The work of Archipenko is degraded to cheap mass-produced items by this mercantilism. 

But the Horseman counterbalances this as a rider of the Apocalypse.

A documentary film about the statue of Archipenko Horseman is being made

Alexander Archipenko :Horseman

The bronze horseman sculpture of Alexander Archipenko has emerged into public knowledge from near oblivion over the past ten years. The art historians no longer dare deny its existence. The surfacing of this bronze sculpture elevates the role of Archipenko in world sculpture to the highest level.

The Horseman is the sole remaining piece of art that records the cubist line of Archipenko’s work.  The sculpture was created using unique moulding and soldering techniques, that were only available to European moulding masters in the late 19^th and early 20^th century. The proportions and brave structure of the sculpture represent an unrepeatable intellectual self-realization in the art of Archipenko.

During his years in America Archipenko never managed to recreate this unique artistic style.

Archipenko’s Horseman is one of the lucky pieces of art that has not become the victim of mass production of boring copies.

The sheer existence of this unique sculpture elevates it to the rank of a masterpiece by Archipenko.