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Serge Charchoune

Cubism, Surrealism, Dada, Musical composition

(Bougourouslan, 1888 - Villeneuve-Saint-Georges, 1975)

In 1900, young Charchoune entered a business school but soon leaves it behind and starts to paint lyrical landscapes. In 1905 he started to study painting in Moscow. Soon, he discovers Fauvism and Cubism in 1910 during an exhibition in Moscow where he saw artworks of Picasso, Braque, Derain and Léger. The exhibition was a huge success in Moscow and allowed Charchoune to comprehend Cubism and liberate himself of a literary representation.

In 1910, during the war, Charchoune is called for war but deserted after two years and went to Berlin. In Berlin, he attended the first Salon d’Automne where he discovered German Expressionism, but thought that German Expressionism sensitivity was too extreme. His arrival in Paris in 1912 is an absolute turning point in his career.  Very soon, he joins the cubist academy The Palette and follows the class of Metzinger and Le Fauconnier with who he discovers what he expected from French cubism, a rigorous system of volumes analysis. Thanks to Le Fauconnier, Charchoune exhibits for the first time at Salon des Independents in 1913. The same year, he met a young slave engraver and student of Bourdelle, Helen Grunhoff who became his partner during ten years. The following year, in 1914, he exhibited again at Salon des Independents and showed three paintings entitled Influenced Still life paintings or Influenced Compositions.

During the First World War, Charchoune went to Barcelona as many of his partners Albert Gleizes, Marie Laurencin, Delaunay, and Francis Picabia who created his own Dadaist revue 391. Starts the Barcelona Dadaist period of Charchoune, from 1916 to 1917, where the artist moves into a city became the centre of European avant-garde. His first solo show is in 1916 in the gallery of Josep Delman. This year, Charchoune exhibited with his partner Helen Grunhoff. In 1917, he exhibited alone this time, and this exhibition was the first exhibition of abstract painting in Spain. During this Barcelona period, Charchoune discovers moorish ceramic, a mix of arabic patterns and spanish medieval decors that reminds Charchoune of russian decorative art. He integrates these elements in geometrical coloured compositions and conceives an art called “ornamental”.

In 1917, during the russian revolution, Charchoune contracted the flu. In 1920, he came back to Paris and participated to his first Parisian exhibition in the library of André Forry. He joins Dada Movement, attracted by the exaltation of absurd that he already knows with the contemporary russian literary.

Charchoune sent to Picabia an illustration for his dadaist revue: 391. Picabia then invited Charchoune to attend a meeting of the Dada Group. Chachoune starts to actively participate at meetings and manifestations of the group (he participated at the scandalous inauguration of the Max Ernst exhibition organised by Tristan Tsara). Charchoune became a regular member of Parisian Dadaist group.

During his all life, Charchoune was haunted by the desire to return in Russia. Attracted by the influence this revolution had on Russian avant-garde, he went to Berlin in 1922, in order to obtain his visa to come back in Russia but decided to settle there. He then develops his “Ornamental Cubism”. He reintroduces the object in painting and abandoned vivid colours of his dadaist period. In Berlin he exhibited among russian avant-gardes artists.

In 1923, Charchoune settled definitively in Paris. While Dada struggling, Cubism lives its last moments and is forget as formal research and forms analyse. Charchoune buries Cubism in 1921 and invites his friends to “attend cubism funeral” and signs “Serge Charchoune, undertaker”. Between 1925 and 1928, Charchoune participates to last cubist creations. Starts the Purism period of his creation. The artist is looking for a new creative inspiration. During his solo show of 1926 at the gallery Jeanne Bucher, Charchoune already sold all his artworks, and began a new creation. He creates purist composition on big format and the object is more ornamental, almost emblematic.

In 1929, Charchoune gets away from Purism and starts his Elastic Landscapes, strongly influenced by Dada. In theses compositions Charchoune goes back to spirals and arabesques, and he uses Dada to offer a unique vision of nature. Charchoune gives a mystique aspect to his Ornamental Impressionism, from semi-abstract landscapes to figurative still – life paintings. His series Temperature Sheet and Ornamental Impressionism are made on rests of cheap canvas. Charchoune integrates a new element to creation: the rapidity of creation, which will be the main point of future gestural painting.The Wall Street Crash of 1929 affected all Europe. Charchoune lost his art dealer and falls into solitude and isolation. He stops painting and restarts his writing activity, and frequents Russian literary society.

In 1943, the great collector Roger Dutilleul gives him a new impulsion by introducing him to the art dealer Raymond Greuze, who becomes his mentor. From 1948 to 1950 Charchoune dedicates his creation to cubist still-life paintings on big formats. Colours and arabesques and spirals are reintroduced to create musical composition, especially with the representation of violin.

In 1952, Charchoune creates more peaceful compositions with figurative monochromics. He continues to explore musical themes and also paints seascapes. It seems that Charchoune applies colours and then tones them down with a white pastry, as in his work Crystallisation in 1947.

The year 1956 marks a new turning point in his career and Charchoune makes a progress in his musical abstraction, integrating sounds in his compositions. Charchoune uses music to realize ornamental painting, almost spiritual. His painting becomes definitively monochromic. The vive colours of the 1940’s are mixed with a Dada structure, with arabesques and spirals of Barcelona years, influenced by the Russian aesthetics, dear to the artist. From 1957 to 1964, numerous solo shows are organised in Milan, New York and Paris. In 1965, a big Dada retrospective is organised in Zurich and some works of Charchoune are exhibited. In 1971, Museum of Modern Art in Paris dedicated to Charchoune a huge retrospective. In 1974, some solo shows are organised at the Galerie de Seine in Paris and Lorenzelli Gallery in Milan. 

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Work(s)