108 Facts About Marcel Janco

Marcel Janco was the co-inventor of Dadaism and a leading exponent of Constructivism in Eastern Europe.

Marcel Janco was a practitioner of Art Nouveau, Futurism and Expressionism before contributing his painting and stage design to Tzara's literary Dadaism.

Marcel Janco parted with Dada in 1919, when he and painter Hans Arp founded a Constructivist circle, Das Neue Leben.

At Contimporanul, Marcel Janco expounded a "revolutionary" vision of urban planning.

Marcel Janco designed some of the most innovative landmarks of downtown Bucharest.

Marcel Janco worked in many art forms, including illustration, sculpture and oil painting.

Marcel Janco was one of the leading Romanian Jewish intellectuals of his generation.

Marcel Janco won the Dizengoff Prize and Israel Prize, and was a founder of Ein Hod, a utopian art colony.

Marcel Janco was born on 24 May 1895 in Bucharest to an upper middle class Jewish family.

Marcel Janco's father, Hermann Zui Iancu, was a textile merchant.

Marcel Janco attended Gheorghe Sincai School and studied drawing art with the Romanian Jewish painter and cartoonist Iosif Iser.

Marcel Janco became friends with pianist Clara Haskil, the subject of his first published drawing, which appeared in Flacara magazine in March 1912.

Unlike Tzara, who refused to look back on Simbolul with anything but embarrassment, Marcel Janco proudly regarded it as his first participation in artistic revolution.

Marcel Janco was a visitor of the literary and art club meeting at the home of controversial politician and Symbolist poet Alexandru Bogdan-Pitesti, who was for a while the manager of Seara.

Years later, in 1923, Marcel Janco drew an ink portrait of Urmuz.

Marcel Janco eventually decided to leave Romania, probably because he wanted to attend international events such as the Sonderbund exhibit, but because of quarrels with his father.

Marcel Janco was noted for performing selections from Romanian folklore and playing the accordion, as well as for his rendition of chansons.

Ball found the young painter especially pleasant, and was impressed that, unlike his peers, Marcel Janco was melancholy rather than ironic; other participants remember him as a very handsome presence in the group, and he allegedly had the reputation of a "lady-killer".

Marcel Janco was a major contributor to the cabaret's events: he notably carved the grotesque masks worn by performers on stilts, gave "hissing concerts" and, in unison with Huelsenbeck and Tzara, improvised some of the first "simultaneous poems" to be read on stage.

Contrary to Ball's later claim of authorship, Marcel Janco is credited with having tailored the "bishop dress", another one of the iconic products of early Dadaism.

Marcel Janco circulated stories according to which their shows were attended for informative purposes by communist theorist Vladimir Lenin and psychiatrist Carl Jung.

Marcel Janco was the director and mask designer for the Dada production for another one of Kokoschka's plays, Job.

Marcel Janco returned as Tzara's illustrator, producing the linocuts to The First Heavenly Adventure of Mr Antipyrine, having already created the props for its theatrical production.

In February 1918, Marcel Janco was even invited to lecture at his alma mater, where he spoke about modernism and authenticity in art as related phenomena, drawing comparisons between the Renaissance and African art.

However, having decided to focus on his other projects, Marcel Janco nearly abandoned his studies, and failed his final exam.

Marcel Janco was even affiliated with Artistes Radicaux, a more politically inclined section of Das Neue Leben, where his colleagues included other former Dadas: Arp, Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling.

Marcel Janco made his final contribution to the Dada adventure in April 1919, when he designed the masks for a major Dada event organized by Tzara at the Saal zur Kaufleutern, and which degenerated into an infamous mass brawl.

Marcel Janco was announced, with Tzara, as a contributor to the post-Dada magazine L'Esprit Nouveau, published by Paul Dermee.

Nevertheless, Marcel Janco was invited to exhibit elsewhere, rallying with Section d'Or, a Cubist collective.

Marcel Janco was reconciled with his parents, and, although still unlicensed as an architect, began receiving his first commissions, some of which came from within his own family.

Marcel Janco's first known design, constructed in 1922 and officially registered as the work of one I Rosenthal, is a group of seven alley houses, 3 pairs and corner residence, on his father Hermann Iancu's property, at 79 Maximilian Popper Street ; one of these became his new home.

From his position as Constructivist mentor and international artist, Marcel Janco proceeded to network between Romanian modernist currents, and joined up with his old colleague Vinea.

Marcel Janco was abroad that year, as one of guests at the First Constructivist Congress, convened by Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg in Dusseldorf.

Marcel Janco was in Zurich around 1923, receiving the visit of a compatriot, writer Victor Eftimiu, who declared him a hard-working artist able to reconcile the modern with the traditional.

However, by 1923, the journal became increasingly cultural and artistic in its revolt, headlining with translations from van Doesburg and Breton, publishing Vinea's own homage to Futurism, and featuring illustrations and international notices which Marcel Janco may have handpicked himself.

Marcel Janco was at the time in correspondence with Dermee, who was to contribute the Contimporanul anthology of modern French poetry, and with fellow painter Michel Seuphor, who collected Marcel Janco's Constructivist sculptures.

Marcel Janco maintained a link between Contimporanul and Der Sturm, which republished his drawings alongside the contributions of various Romanian avant-garde writers and artists.

Marcel Janco took charge of Contimporanuls business side, designing its offices on Imprimerie Street and overseeing the publication of postcards.

Marcel Janco oversaw one of the journal's first special issues, dedicated to "Modern Architecture", and notably hosting his own contributions to architectural theory, as well as his design of a "country workshop" for Vinea's use.

Marcel Janco was largely responsible for the Contimporanul issue on Surrealism, which included his interviews with writers such as Joseph Delteil, and his inquiry about the publisher Simon Kra.

Together with Romanian Cubist painter M H Maxy, Janco was personally involved in curating the Contimporanul International Art Exhibit of 1924.

Marcel Janco was involved in preparing the magazine's theatrical parties, including the 1925 production of A Merry Death, by Nikolai Evreinov; Janco was the set and costume designer, and Eliad the director.

Marcel Janco was a dedicated admirer of Brancusi, visiting him in Paris and writing in Contimporanul about Brancusi's "spirituality of form" theories.

Marcel Janco was an occasional presence in the pages of Punct, the Dadaist-Constructivist paper put out by the socialist Scarlat Callimachi.

Marcel Janco was called upon by authors Ion Pillat and Perpessicius to illustrate their Antologia poetilor de azi.

In 1926, Marcel Janco further antagonized the traditionalists by publishing sensual drawings for Camil Baltazar's book of erotic poems, Strigari trupesti linga glezne.

Heralding the change of architectural tastes with his articles in Contimporanul, Marcel Janco described Romania's capital as a chaotic, inharmonious, backward town, in which the traffic was hampered by carts and trams, a city in need of Modernist revolution.

The architect and his patrons were undeterred by such reactions, and the Marcel Janco firm received commissions to build similar villas.

Until 1933, when Marcel Janco finally received his certification, his designs continued to be officially recorded under different names, most usually attributed to a Constantin Simionescu.

Marcel Janco was still active as the art editor of Contimporanul during its final and most eclectic series of 1929, when he took part in selecting new young contributors, such as publicist and art critic Barbu Brezianu.

Beyond his Contimporanul affiliation, Marcel Janco rallied with the Bucharest collective Arta Noua, joined by Maxy, Brauner, Mattis-Teutsch, Petrascu, Nina Arbore, Cornelia Babic-Daniel, Alexandru Bratasanu, Olga Greceanu, Corneliu Michailescu, Claudia Millian, Tania Septilici and others.

Marcel Janco prepared woodcuts for the first edition of Vinea's novel Paradisul suspinelor, printed with Editura Cultura Nationala in 1930, and for Vinea's poems in their magazine versions.

Marcel Janco's drawings were used in illustrating two volumes of interviews with writers, compiled by Contimporanul sympathizer Felix Aderca, and Costin's only volume of prose, the 1931 Exercitii pentru mana dreapta.

Marcel Janco attended the 1930 reunion organized by Contimporanul in honor of the visiting Futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and gave a welcoming speech.

Marcel Janco's text restated the need and opportunity for modernist urban planning, especially in Bucharest.

In 1935, Marcel Janco published the pamphlet Catre o arhitectura a Bucurestilor, which recommended a "utopian" project to solve the city's social crisis.

Probably commissioned by Mircea Eliade, in 1935 Marcel Janco designed the Alexandrescu Building, a severe four storey tenement for Eliade's sister and her family.

Together with Margareta Sterian, who became his disciple, Marcel Janco was working on artistic projects involving ceramics and fresco.

Marcel Janco's prints served to illustrate Sadismul adevarului, written by unu founder Sasa Pana.

For Marcel Janco, the events were an opportunity to discuss his own assimilation into Romanian society: in one of his conferences, he defined himself as "an artist who is a Jew", rather than "a Jewish artist".

Marcel Janco subsequently made his first trip to British Palestine, and began arranging his and his family's relocation there.

Marcel Janco was working on one of his last, and most experimental, contributions to Romanian architecture: the Hermina Hassner Villa, the Emil Petrascu residence, and a tower behind the Atheneum.

Marcel Janco was finding work with the ghettoized Jewish community, designing the new Baraseum Studio, located in the vicinity of Caimatei.

Marcel Janco was still in Romania when the Iron Guard established its National Legionary State.

Marcel Janco was receiving and helping Jewish refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe, and hearing from them about the concentration camp system, but refused offers to emigrate into a neutral or Allied country.

Marcel Janco's mind was made up in January 1941, when the Iron Guard's struggle for maintaining power resulted in the Bucharest Pogrom.

Marcel Janco himself was a personal witness to the violent events, noting for instance that the Nazi German bystanders would declare themselves impressed by the Guard's murderous efficiency, or how the thugs made an example of the Jews trapped in the Choral Temple.

Marcel Janco was kidnapped from his house by Guardsmen, and his corpse was among those found hanging on hooks, mutilated in such way as to mock the Jewish kashrut ritual.

Marcel Janco later stated that, over the course of a few days, the pogrom had made him a militant Jew.

In particular, Marcel Janco was an early influence on three Zionist artists who had arrived to Palestine from other regions: Avigdor Stematsky, Yehezkel Streichman and Joseph Zaritsky.

Marcel Janco was recognized as a leading presence in the artist community, receiving Tel Aviv Municipality's Dizengoff Prize in 1945, and again in 1946.

Marcel Janco was again a recipient of the Dizengoff Prize in 1950 and 1951, resuming his activity as an art promoter and teacher, with lectures at the Seminar HaKibbutzim college.

Marcel Janco's artwork was again on show in New York City for a 1950 retrospective.

Marcel Janco began his main Israeli project in May 1953, after he had been mandated by the Israeli government to prospect the mountainous regions and delimit a new national park south of Mount Carmel.

Marcel Janco felt that the place should not be demolished, obtaining a lease on it from the authorities, and rebuilt the place with other Israeli artists who worked there on weekends; Marcel Janco's main residence continued to be in the neighborhood of Ramat Aviv.

Also in the 1950s, Marcel Janco was a founding member of Ofakim Hadashim group, comprising Israeli painters committed to abstract art, and headed by Zaritsky.

Marcel Janco continued to explore new media, and, together with artisan Itche Mambush, he created a series of reliefs and tapestries.

Marcel Janco drew in pastel, and created humorous illustrations to Don Quixote.

Marcel Janco organized a community defense force, headed by sculptor Tuvia Iuster, which guarded Ein Hod until Israel Police intervened against the protesters.

Marcel Janco was generally tolerant of those Palestinians who set up the small rival community of Ein Hawd: he notably maintained contacts with tribal leader Abu Hilmi and with Arab landscape artist Muin Zaydan Abu al-Hayja, but the relationship between the two villages was generally distant.

Marcel Janco has been described as "disinterested" in the fate of his Arab neighbors.

Marcel Janco himself made efforts to preserve a link with Romania, and sent albums to his artist friends beyond the Iron Curtain.

Marcel Janco met with folklorist and former political prisoner Harry Brauner, poet Stefan Iures, painter Matilda Ulmu and art historian Geo Serban.

Marcel Janco's studio was home to other Jewish Romanian emigrants fleeing communism, including female artist Liana Saxone-Horodi.

One of the last public events to be attended by Marcel Janco was the creation of the Janco-Dada Museum at his home in Ein Hod.

Around 1913, Marcel Janco was in more direct contact with the French sources of Iser's Postimpressionism, having by then discovered on his own the work of Andre Derain.

Researcher Tom Sandqvist presumes that Marcel Janco was in effect following his friends' command, as "his own preferences were soon closer to Cezanne and cubist-influenced modes of expression".

The influence of Germanic Postimpressionism on Marcel Janco's art was crystallized during his studies at the Federal Institute of Technology.

Sandqvist suggests that, after modernizing Moser's ideas, Marcel Janco first theorized that Abstract-Expressionistic decorations needed to an integral part of the basic architectural design.

Marcel Janco's Rolling the Dice piece is a meditation on the tragedy of human existence, which reinterprets the symbolism of zodiacs and probably alludes to the seedier side of urban life.

Such views were contrasted by Perpessicius' publicized belief that Marcel Janco was "the purest artist", his drawings evidencing the "great vital force" of his subjects.

Art critic Harry Seiwert notes that Marcel Janco's art reflected his contact with various other alternative models, found in Ancient Egyptian and Far Eastern art, in the paintings of Cimabue and El Greco, and in Cloisonnism.

Seiwert and Sandqvist both propose that Marcel Janco's work had other enduring connections with the visual conventions of Hassidism and the dark tones often favored by 20th-century Jewish art.

Around 1919, Marcel Janco had come to describe Constructivism as a needed transition from "negative" Dada, an idea pioneered by his colleagues Kurt Schwitters and Theo van Doesburg, and finding an early expression in Marcel Janco's plaster relief Soleil jardin clair.

In part, Marcel Janco's post-Dadaism responded to the socialist ideals of Constructivism.

Seiwert suggests that virtually none of Marcel Janco's paintings show a verifiable contact with Romanian primitivism, but his opinion is questioned by Sandqvist: he writes that Marcel Janco's masks and prints are homages to traditional Romanian decorative patterns.

Also then, Marcel Janco worked on seascape and still life canvasses, in brown tones and Cubist arrangements.

In discussing architecture, Marcel Janco described himself and the other Artistes Radicaux as the mentors of Europe's modernist urban planners, including Bruno Taut and the Bauhaus group.

Marcel Janco's own architectural work was entirely dedicated to functionalism: in his words, the purpose of architecture was a "harmony of forms", with designs as simplified as to resemble crystals.

Indebted to Le Corbusier's New Architecture, Marcel Janco theorized that Bucharest had the "luck" of not yet being systematized or built-up, and that it could be easily turned into a garden city, without ever repeating the West's "chain of mistakes".

Marcel Janco was still eclectic beyond abstractionism, and made frequent returns to brightly colored, semi-figurative, landscapes.

Marcel Janco later worked on the Imaginary Animals cycle of paintings, inspired by the short stories of Urmuz.

Marcel Janco writes that Janco's landscapes of the place "romanticize" his own contact with the Palestinians, and that they fail to clarify whether he thought of Arabs as refugees or as fellow inhabitants.

Marcel Janco's portrait was painted by colleague Victor Brauner, in 1924.

Marcel Janco was however honored with a special issue of Secolul 20 literary magazine, in 1979, and interviewed for Tribuna and Luceafarul journals.

The sale of such property happened at a fast pace, reportedly surpassing the standardized conservation effort, and experts noted with alarm that Marcel Janco villas were being defaced with anachronistic additions, such as insulated glazing and structural interventions, or eclipsed by the newer highrise.

Marcel Janco was again being referenced as a possible model for new generations of Romanian architects and urban planners.

Outside Romania, Marcel Janco's work has been reviewed in specialized monographs by Harry Seiwert and Michael Ilk.