Pevsner, Antoine (redirected from Natan Borisovich Pevzner)

Pevsner, Antoine (äNtwän` pyĕvz`nər), 1886–1962, Russian sculptor and painter. He was influenced by cubism while in Paris in 1911 and 1913. During World War I he was in Norway with his brother Naum Gabo. They returned to Moscow after the Russian Revolution. Pevsner taught at the Moscow academy and associated with avant-garde artists such as Malevich and Tatlin. He and Gabo worked together in 1920 on the manifesto of constructivism. In sculpture Pevsner created constructivist works in bronze and other materials, such as his portrait of Marcel Duchamp (1926; Yale Univ.). His rhythmic, abstract designs intended a new synthesis of the plastic arts. Impending conflict with the regime caused Pevsner to leave the Soviet Union in 1922. The next year he settled in France. Several of his constructions are in the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.

Bibliography

See biography by his brother, Alexi Pevsner (1964).

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Pevsner, Antoine

 orig. Natan Borisovich Pevzner

(born Jan. 18, 1886, Oryol, Russia—died April 12, 1962, Paris, France) Russian-born French sculptor and painter. After travels to Paris and Oslo, he returned to become a professor at Moscow's school of fine arts. He helped form the Suprematist group, and in 1920 he and his brother, Naum Gabo, issued the Realist Manifesto of Constructivism. He settled in Paris in 1923. He used zinc, brass, copper, and celluloid for his early sculptures; later he relied mainly on parallel arrays of bronze wire soldered together to form plates, which he joined to form intricate shapes.