(after) Antoine Pevsner - Face of a Man - Lithograph 1959

(after) Antoine Pevsner - Face of a Man - Lithograph From the literary review ''XXe Siècle'' 1959 Signed in the plate Dimensions: 32 x 24 cm Publisher: G. di San Lazzaro. Antoine Pevsner (1884 - 1962) Antoine Pevsner was born in 1884 in Orel in Belarus. He studies at the School of Fine Arts of Kiev, then at the Academy of Beaux-Art in St. Petersburg. Pevsner lives in Paris from 1911 to 1913, then from 1914 to 1915, the year that he joins his brother Naum Gabo, in Oslo. Pevsner paints his first abstract canvases in 1913. The two brothers belong to a Russian bourgeoisie that valued technical and scientific progress. In 1917, he returns to Moscow and teaches painting at the National studio of free art, then in 1919-1920, in Vkhoutemas. The artist starts to research the pigments of material and fabrics by crushing different vegetal and mineral materials. In 1920, with his brother composes the ‘Manifeste realiste’ (Realist Manifesto) that they put on the walls of the city; this text militates for a total detachment in relation to the reality which the Pevsner strives exceed the appearance. The two brothers organize an exhibition of their work in the public garden Tverskoi in the centre of Moscow. The defense of abstract art becomes an unbearable position in the context where creation in the service of the revolution must be accessible to all and strictly tied to industrial production. In 1921, accused of producing ‘a capitalist art’, his studio is closed by the powers above and he is forbidden to teach. Antoine Pevsner immigrates to Berlin in 1921, then moves to Paris in 1923, obtaining French nationality seven years later (He frenchifies his first name at this time, Nathan becomes Antoine). After his debut in 1917 in Norway, the artists puts his effort into sculpture in 1923 and produces the plastic constructions, creating forms and coloring them with a looseness of luminous specters. In 1927, with his brother he creates the décor and costumes for the ballet ‘Constructivistes’ of Diaghilev. From the 1930 Antoine Pevsner uses brass wires, bronze and other metals and solders segments of juxtaposed lines to penetrate space in a dynamic manner. The artist completes a series of bas-reliefs. In 1932, Pevsner becomes a member of the Abstraction-Creation. Pevsner takes the column as his theme, then the oval. In 1947, he co-founds the Salon Réalités Nouvelles. In the 50’s, he produces commissions for architectural works. Antoine Pevsner creates a void and works on space and time, essential dimensions of sculpture. Before his death, the artist donates to MNAM Georges Pompidou Centre a set of sculptures, paintings and drawings that today constitute the richest collection of his works worldwide. Antoine Pevsner died in Paris in 1962.