Joseph Chaikov
Encyclopedia
Joseph Moisevich Chaikov (also spelled, among other spellings, Tshaykov, Tchaikov, and Tchaikovsky; 1888 – 1979) was a Russian
Jewish
sculptor
, graphic designer
and teacher, active both before the revolution
and as a Soviet
artist.
and initially trained as an engraver, Chaikov studied in Paris
in the years 1910 through 1914. In 1912 he co-founded a group of young Jewish artists called Mahmad, and published a Hebrew-language
magazine with that name; in 1913 he participated in the Salon d'Automne
.
He returned to Kiev in 1914. He was co-founder, along with El Lissitzky
, Boris Aronson
and others, of the Jewish socialist
Kultur Lige
in Kiev, led sculpture classes there, supervised a children's art studio and illustrated children's books, and in post-revolutionary Kiev focused on billboards and agitational propaganda
. In 1921 he published the Yiddish-language
book Skulptur
, advocating avant-garde
sculpture as a contribution to a new Jewish art. This book was also the first book on sculpture to be published in Yiddish.
Chaikov moved to Moscow to teach at Vkhutemas
from 1923 to 1930, alongside fellow sculptors Boris Korolev
and Vera Mukhina
. All three designed and taught cubist sculpture
in the distinctively Russian Cubo-Futurism
style, radically geometric and highly dynamic. From 1929 Chaikov was the head of the Society of Russian Sculptors. In 1932, after the end of the period of artistic freedom, all of these cubists turned back to Socialist Realism
and produced more classically styled work.
In the 1930s his work was prominently shown at the two Soviet world's fair
pavilions, for the 1937 Paris Exposition
and the 1939 New York World's Fair
. His work in Paris was an extensive frieze of nine-foot figures, the People of the USSR, carved on two stele
s flanking the entrance to the pavilion. Fragments of the Paris work were unearthed in rural France in the 2000s, after having been presented to the French labor union after the fair, relocated to a holiday château
, broken up by pro-Nazi
youth during the occupation, and buried for 50 years.
Chaikov continued to work in a variety of genres, techniques and scales. He was named an Honored Artist of the USSR in 1959, and his work is in the permanent collection of MOMA
.
He died in Moscow
.
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
Jewish
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
sculptor
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
, graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
and teacher, active both before the revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...
and as a Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
artist.
Biography
Born in KievKiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
and initially trained as an engraver, Chaikov studied in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in the years 1910 through 1914. In 1912 he co-founded a group of young Jewish artists called Mahmad, and published a Hebrew-language
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
magazine with that name; in 1913 he participated in the Salon d'Automne
Salon d'Automne
In 1903, the first Salon d'Automne was organized by Georges Rouault, André Derain, Henri Matisse, Angele Delasalle and Albert Marquet as a reaction to the conservative policies of the official Paris Salon...
.
He returned to Kiev in 1914. He was co-founder, along with El Lissitzky
El Lissitzky
, better known as El Lissitzky , was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works...
, Boris Aronson
Boris Aronson
Boris Aronson was an American scenic designer for Broadway and Yiddish theatre. He won the Tony Award for Scenic Design six times in his career.-Biography:...
and others, of the Jewish socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
Kultur Lige
Kultur Lige
The Kultur Lige was a secular socialist Jewish organization associated with the Jewish Labour Bund, established in Kiev in 1918, whose aim was to promote Yiddish language literature, theater and culture...
in Kiev, led sculpture classes there, supervised a children's art studio and illustrated children's books, and in post-revolutionary Kiev focused on billboards and agitational propaganda
Agitprop
Agitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
. In 1921 he published the Yiddish-language
Yiddish language
Yiddish is a High German language of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, spoken throughout the world. It developed as a fusion of German dialects with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic languages and traces of Romance languages...
book Skulptur
Skulptur
Skulptur is a 1921 Yiddish language short book written by Joseph Chaikov. The book was the first book in Yiddish on sculpture. In Skulptur, Chaikov advocates avant-garde sculpture as a contribution to a new Jewish art. Skulptur was published by Melukhe Farlag in Kiev, and contains 15 pages....
, advocating avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
sculpture as a contribution to a new Jewish art. This book was also the first book on sculpture to be published in Yiddish.
Chaikov moved to Moscow to teach at Vkhutemas
VKhUTEMAS
Vkhutemas ) was the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, replacing the Moscow Svomas. The workshops were established by a decree from Vladimir Lenin with the intentions, in the words of the Soviet government, "to prepare master artists of the highest qualifications for...
from 1923 to 1930, alongside fellow sculptors Boris Korolev
Boris Korolev
-General facts:Korolév , Borís Danílovich – a great Soviet sculptor-monumentalist, teacher and an outstanding public figure. As an artist Korolyóv stood at the origins of the Soviet school of sculpture, its mainstream, but he also was one of the leading figures in the avant-garde movement...
and Vera Mukhina
Vera Mukhina
Vera Ignatyevna Mukhina was a prominent Soviet sculptor.- Life :Mukhina was born in Riga into a wealthy merchant family, and lived at Turgeneva st. 23/25, where a memorial plaque has now been placed. She later moved to Moscow, where she studied at several private art schools, including those of...
. All three designed and taught cubist sculpture
Cubist sculpture
Cubist sculpture is a style developed in parallel with cubist painting, centered in Paris, beginning around 1909 and evolving through the early 1920s.The style is most closely associated with the formal experiments of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso...
in the distinctively Russian Cubo-Futurism
Cubo-Futurism
Cubo-Futurism was the main school of painting and sculpture practiced by the Russian Futurists.When Aristarkh Lentulov returned from Paris in 1913 and exhibited his works in Moscow, the Russian Futurist painters adopted the forms of Cubism and combined them with the Italian Futurists'...
style, radically geometric and highly dynamic. From 1929 Chaikov was the head of the Society of Russian Sculptors. In 1932, after the end of the period of artistic freedom, all of these cubists turned back to Socialist Realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
and produced more classically styled work.
In the 1930s his work was prominently shown at the two Soviet world's fair
World's Fair
World's fair, World fair, Universal Exposition, and World Expo are various large public exhibitions held in different parts of the world. The first Expo was held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, United Kingdom, in 1851, under the title "Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All...
pavilions, for the 1937 Paris Exposition
Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937)
The Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne was held from May 25 to November 25, 1937 in Paris, France...
and the 1939 New York World's Fair
1939 New York World's Fair
The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...
. His work in Paris was an extensive frieze of nine-foot figures, the People of the USSR, carved on two stele
Stele
A stele , also stela , is a stone or wooden slab, generally taller than it is wide, erected for funerals or commemorative purposes, most usually decorated with the names and titles of the deceased or living — inscribed, carved in relief , or painted onto the slab...
s flanking the entrance to the pavilion. Fragments of the Paris work were unearthed in rural France in the 2000s, after having been presented to the French labor union after the fair, relocated to a holiday château
Château
A château is a manor house or residence of the lord of the manor or a country house of nobility or gentry, with or without fortifications, originally—and still most frequently—in French-speaking regions...
, broken up by pro-Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
youth during the occupation, and buried for 50 years.
Chaikov continued to work in a variety of genres, techniques and scales. He was named an Honored Artist of the USSR in 1959, and his work is in the permanent collection of MOMA
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
.
He died in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
.
Major works
- People of the USSR – friezes on steles flanking the entrance to the Soviet Pavilion at the 1937 Paris ExpositionExposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (1937)The Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne was held from May 25 to November 25, 1937 in Paris, France...
, for architect Boris IofanBoris IofanBoris Mihailovich Iofan was a Russian Soviet architect, known for his Stalinist architecture buildings like 1931 House on Embankment and the 1931-1933 winning draft of the Palace of Soviets.- Background :...
(recently rediscovered) - Bas reliefsReliefRelief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...
for the Soviet Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair1939 New York World's FairThe 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...
, for architect Iofan - The golden Friendship of the Nations fountain at the All-Russia Exhibition CentreAll-Russia Exhibition CentreAll-Russia Exhibition Centre is a permanent general-purpose trade show in Moscow, Russia....
, Moscow, circa 1954 (with fellow sculptors Z. Bazhenova, L. Bazhenova, A. Teneta, and Z. Rileeva)