Profession: artist

Archipenko is a paradox: a genuinely influential pioneer of modernist sculpture whose works, even at their best, now look stylised and undemanding. He knew Pevsner from Kyiv, and hooked up again in Paris. Arriving there aged 22, he met Léger, Modigliani, Gaudier-Brzeska, Cendrars and Apollinaire (who wrote his first catalogue introduction) at the artists’ colony La Ruche. Chagall and Altman were among the Russians congregating there. He joined the Duchamp brothers’ Puteaux group (Gris another member) and was visited by Boccioni. In America, Moholy gave him a position in Chicago, where Smith was among his students.

Gabo was a pioneer of the use of space and motion as primary sculptural elements, and of modern materials like plastics. His brother Pevsner was a close colleague, mentor and artistic influence. A visit to Kandinsky in Munich introduced Gabo to the idea of abstraction. Tatlin and Rodchenko (and Kandinsky) were colleagues at Vkhutemas in Moscow (Gabo was an unofficial presence), and Archipenko a fellow-exhibitor in a Berlin show that Altman helped organise. Moore, Read, and especially Nicholson and Hepworth were friends in Britain, and Mumford in the U.S. Schwitters, a close friend, dedicated a Merzbau ‘cave’ to him.

Kollwitz’s deeply humanistic art made her a strong voice for the proletarian and oppressed. Barlach, friend and colleague, was influential at a critical phase in her career; so too were Klinger and (however brief their meetings) Rodin. She had met and been impressed by Hauptmann several years before making a series of prints based around a play of his, a turning-point in her artistic life. Grosz and Einstein were involved with her in setting up a left-wing workers’ organisation. Her colleague Mann and she were sacked together for leading artists against nazi oppression, though her work was never proscribed.

Dix and his friend Grosz were the two most relentlessly uncompromising depictors of the effects on German society of World War I. He knew Grosz, and Heartfield, from Berlin Dada days, although his flirtation with that movement was brief. Sander, another friend, credited conversations with Dix as formative in his own great unfinished project. Bellmer met him as a young engineering student.

Chamberlain’s characteristic crushed-steel sculpture has been credited by Richard Serra as providing permission for those of his generation to adventure further. Studying and teaching at Black Mountain college, he found kindred spirits in the poets Olson, Duncan and — a lifelong friend, and sometime collaborator — Creeley. Out of materials to work with, Chamberlain took the bumpers off Rivers’ old Ford, and drove over them to reshape them. Huelsenbeck introduced him to Tinguely (surely another kindred spirit). Judd was an important supporter — Chamberlain incorporated a crushed cube of his into one of his own pieces.