Louis Marcoussis (1878-1941)
Nature morte au menu et au siphon – Still life with menu and soda siphon, ca. 1920
Oil on canvas
Courtesy of the Leonid and Tatiana Nevzlin Collection
Must Know
Born Ludwik Kazimierz Wladyslaw Markus in Poland, Marcoussis spent much of his life in Paris, where he associated with other Cubist painters. The objects on the Parisian café table act as abstract witnesses to long hours of interaction in this intellectually stimulating historical period.
Louis Marcoussis was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1878. At the age of 25, in 1903, he went to Paris. From about 1911 he was part of the Cubist movement alongside other avant-garde painters like Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris. In 1913 he married Alice Halicka, a well known Jewish painter who came from Kraków. he became a French citizen, while also staying in touch with Poland, both personally and professionally. he participated in different Parisian Salons (Salon d’Automne, des Indépendants and the Tuileries), as well as in group art exhibitions abroad. His art is present in all the great museums of the world.
he did not generally talk about his Jewish ancestry, and his family had converted to Catholicism.
After Nazi troops arrived in Paris in 1940, Marcoussis and Alice moved to Cusset near Vichy. he died there on 22 October 1941.
This still life is a very typical Picasso like, cubist painting of a table in a café that includes a pipe, a random playing card, a menu, soda siphon and a glass. Picasso, Gris and Braque painted hundreds of these kind of paintings. Although made in 1920 it is an example of early analytical cubism typical of 1908-1912. In the 1920s Picasso and Braque were already making collages.
