The Boxers (La Lutte)

Archipenko’s life took him from Kiev to Moscow to Paris to New York; in all locales he remained committed to invention and the avant-garde. In Paris he met Fernand Léger and other Cubist artists, eventually joining the breakaway group the Section d’Or. In this abstract Cubistic composition, the subject, boxers engaged in a fight, is implicit in the two confrontational “figures” who are locked in a struggle. The reductive forms recall African and Iberian sculpture, both in themselves and as influences reflected in classical French Cubism. The complex concave and convex forms embrace open space as an integral part of the composition—an innovative sculptural approach that was Archipenko’s most notable artistic achievement.