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Louis Marcoussis
Ludwig Casimir Markus, using the name of Louis Marcoussis
Varsovia, 1883 - Cusset (Allier), 1941

Marcoussis was one of those creators who always felt closer to poets than to painters.At the beginning of the century it had to have been Max Jacob who sketched out the artist’s resemblance in the following terms:

“Champagne, if one has time to listen to it, makes the same sound with its foam in the glass as does the sea upon the sand.In the same way Marcoussis’ correctness returns to us, in the middle of the great world that is his, the sublime nature of his thoughts, concerns, and art; of his moral, immaterial, ideal, mundane, spiritualist, gourmet and demanding life. Marcoussis, correct and sublime, crystalline, celestial, punctilious, susceptible and talkative –Who could not admire him?.”

Few cubist artists have had their critical fortune decided through such a controversy as that surrounding Marcoussis. In short, for some critics Marcoussis should be considered, along with Gris, and after Picasso and Braque, as one of the representatives of true Cubism, while others judge his contribution as being voluntarily on the outer rim of Cubism’s central interests. These are overly polarised opinions that merely prove that Marcoussis needs to be reviewed today from open and versatile ideas about what Cubism itself meant.At any rate, however, in order to understand or evaluate Marcoussis one must take into account the artist’s statements in the Boulletin de la vie artistique en 1924. Here, according to Marcoussis’ sense of art, no closed theory was needed to justify the pleasure produced by a canvas developing itself.

Ludwig Casimir Markus was born in Warsaw in 1883. Therefore, he was a complete contemporary of Picasso, Braque and Gris. Very early on he abandoned his study of law to enrol in the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, involving himself in the circles of Young Poland.In 1903 he moved to Paris.He frequented the Académie Julien and met La Fresnaye. His Post-Impressionism leaning towards Expressionism was substantially changed after seeing the work of Cézanne in 1904. That is to say, at this time, to some extent the young painter was at a starting point that favoured his encounter with the fauvists as well as with the future cubists. He soon participated in the Salons.But in 1907, living in Montparnasse, due to personal reasons he abandoned painting to work in graphic illustration.His work at publications such as L’Assiette au beurre, La Vie parisiense and La Rire earned him a certain fame, and put him in contact with Juan Gris. However, three years later something changed.In 1910 at a session of the Medrano circus he met once again with Apollinaire and met Braque.The following year he entered Picasso’s studio.The few urban landscapes painted by Marcoussis at the time contained an immediate harmony with the cubist intentions.He resumed painting as his main occupation, moved to Montmarte, and was personally present during the important creative period of 1911 through 1913.He involved himself fully in the moment and created some of his best works.In the process, Ludwig Casimir Markus changed his name, at Apollinaire’s urging, to the French-sounding Louis Marcoussis.

In 1914 he enlisted actively and immediately in the French army, practically leaving his painting aside until the demobilisation of 1919.In the post-war period Marcoussis’ involvement in the poetic derivatives of Cubism was much more intense than most of the early cubists.He stretched the possibilities of what is conventionally called Synthetic Cubism, working from a very free sense about shape and colour.In 1924 Marcoussis developed a technique of painting on glass(fixés sous verre) to achieve a greater sense of flatness and of the consistency of flat ink. At the end of the decade the calligraphy of organic shapes was giving his compositions an open and pleasing sensuality.During the 1930s Marcoussis combined his preference for working with abstract coloured planes (usually with human silhouettes on them) with the search for lyricism and imagination. This is when he came close to the surrealists, while never being one, leaving us valuable portraits of André Breton and Paul Éluard. Suffering from lung cancer and strongly disturbed by the Nazi occupation of Poland, Marcoussis died in1941 in the small town of Cusset.

We should remember that Marcoussis was one of the great cubist engravers, his dry-point painting of Apollinaire being one of the best cubist portraits of this individual. On another note, it should be recalled that the artist was in Spain onto occasions.In 1904 he visited some relatives living in San Sebastian and in 1913, after marrying the notable Polish cubist painter Halicja (Alice) Halicka, he spent his honeymoon travelling through much of Catalonia, Majorca, Andalusia, Madrid and Toledo. E. C.

(1) Jacob, Max, Givre, contained in LAFRANCHIS, Jean, Marcoussis. Sa vie, son œuvre. Catalogue complet de peintures, fixés sur verre, aquarelles, dessins, gravures, Paris, Les Éditions du Temps, 1961, p. 24.