ANTOINE PEVESNR: THE CONSTRUCTIVIST SCULPTOR OF KINETIC RHYTHMS

Image Credit: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=23693192

Embracing elements of space and time by employing constructed mass and kinetic rhythms, the intricate and convoluted shapes by Russian born French Constructivist Sculptor, Antoine Pevsner, are remarkable for their unique expression of the modern spirit.

Celebrated as the pioneer of Kinetic Art, Pevsner was born on January 18, 1886, in Oryol, Russia. Pevsner studied art in Russia at Kiev and St. Petersburg. In 1911 and 1913 he visited Paris, where he was influenced by Cubism. In 1915, Pevsner joined his younger brother, Naum Gabo, in Christiania, Oslo, where he worked on non-objective paintings and sculptures.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Pevsner returned to Russia and became a professor at Moscow's school of Fine Arts. In 1920, Pevsner co-signed Naum Gabo’s “Realistic Manifesto” in which they argued that art should be constructed and abstract and should be active in four dimensions, including time.

In 1923, Pevsner left Russia and settled in Paris, where he began to produce abstract sculpture in the Constructivist mode. In 1930s Pevsner created sculptures from bent constructions consisting of metallic threads and strips entitled “Projection in Space”, “Dynamic Construction” and “Developing Surface”; he became a founding member of Abstraction Création in 1931.

Widely recognized for his contributions to Constructivism, Pevsner succeeded in infusing the somewhat impersonal style of Constructivism with his own feeling for form. In 1956-57 he was honored with a retrospective exhibition at the National Museum of Arts in Paris and was awarded the Légion  d'honneur in 1961.

Pevsner died in Paris and buried at the Russian cemetery in Sainte-Geneviéve-des-Bois with his ‘Flight’ sculpture as a gravestone on April 12, 1962.