Groupe de femmes

A photograph taken of Salle XI in sitiu at the 1912 Salon d'Automne and published in L'Illustration, 12 October 1912, p. 47, shows Groupe de femmes exhibited alongside the works of Jean Metzinger, František Kupka, Francis Picabia, Amedeo Modigliani and Henri Le Fauconnier.

At the 1913 Salon des Indépendants Groupe de femmes was exhibited in the company works by Fernand Léger, Jean Metzinger, Robert Delaunay, André Lhote, Raymond Duchamp-Villon, Jacques Villon and Wassily Kandinsky.

The work represents three standing nudes, classical in theme (i.e., Les trois graces), yet executed in an abstract stylized Cubist vocabulary, in opposition to the softness and curvilinearity of Nabis, Symbolist or Art Nouveau forms.

The result, unlike that of Filla, is the redesigning of the head that is no longer dependent upon a frontal confrontation for the most revealing view, and the consistency of this sculptural context discourages trying to project missing features on the blank planes.

The blunt force-fulness with which the head is shaped and thrusts in and out suggests that Csaky had looked not only at Picasso's earlier painting and sculpture, but also at African tribal masks whose exaggerated features and simplified design accommodated the need to be seen at a distance and to evoke strong feeling.

(Elsen)[2][3]Csaky's heads of the period partake in the "stylized, hieratic, nonportrait tradition of tribal and ancient art", writes Edith Balas, "in which there is a total lack of interest in depicting psychological traits".

His acquaintances included Gustave Miklos, Archipenko, Braque, Chagall, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Le Fauconnier, Laurens, Léger, Lipchitz, Metzinger, Picasso and Henri Rousseau, in addition to Pierre Reverdy, Maurice Raynal, Max Jacob, Blaise Cendrars, Guillaume Apollinaire and Ricciotto Canudo.

Joseph Csaky , 1911–1912, Groupe de femmes (Groupe de trois femmes, Groupe de trois personnages) . This Csaky family archive photograph shows a frontal view of the work, revealing three figures rather than two
The 1912 Salon d'Automne at the Grand Palais, reproduced in L'Illustration . Csaky's Groupe de femmes (1911–1912) is exhibited towards the left. Other works are shown by Jean Metzinger , František Kupka , Francis Picabia , Amedeo Modigliani and Henri Le Fauconnier .
Joseph Csaky , Head (Tête) , 1913, Plaster lost