Marcel Janco (1895-1984)
Collage, 1931
Oil, mixed media and collage on paper
Courtesy of the Leonid and Tatiana Nevzlin Collection
A Romanian-Israeli artist, architect and art theorist, Janco was a leading exponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe and co-founded the avant-garde Dada movement, which questioned aesthetic conventions and constraints. Janco later distanced himself from the movement and created works informed by cubism and constructivism.
Must Know
Marcel Janco’s life history can be divided into two main chapters: 46 years in Europe and 43 in Israel. Born in Bucharest, Romania in 1895, his artistic talent became apparent early on.
he thus spent World War I as a student far from home in a neutral country, safe from the horrors of war. In this tranquil atmosphere, he joined a group of young artists performing at the Cabaret Voltaire. The founders of the avant-garde Dada movement, they challenged what they considered the fallacious values of bourgeois society and art. In addition, the Dadaists mounted exhibitions, issued manifestos, and published a journal.
In 1922, after a brief stay in Paris, Janco returned to Romania. His paintings were now mostly of local landscapes, peasants, and interiors, classical subjects which he depicted in a modernist style. His work displayed cubist and constructivist elements along with dark coloration.
Despite his professional success in the country of his birth, in 1940, at the start of World War II, Janco decided to move his family to Palestine in the face of growing anti-Semitism, the persecution of Romania’s Jews, and the Bucharest pogrom. When he arrived in Palestine he was already a noted artist, a modernist deeply enmeshed in the European avant-garde. Once here, both his style of painting and his architectural work underwent a striking change, with the Mediterranean light finding its way into his palette. His paintings from this period depict the landscapes and people of the country, as well as its heroic struggle for independence.
In 1948, a group of local artists joined forces to form a movement they called New Horizons, marking a turning point in modern art in Israel. Janco was one of the founding fathers of the movement, alongside the prominent artists Yehezkel Streichman and Joseph Zaritsky
In 1953 he establishes an utopian artist colony at Ein Hod. The last twenty years of Janco’s life were particularly productive in terms of both his artistic work and his public endeavors. he actively promoted the village of Ein Hod, as well as writing articles about a range of subjects that drew his interest
he dies in 1984, one year after the Janco Dada Museum opens in Ein Hod.
This work has all the elements of a Picasso like collage with cubist and geometric forms.
