Marcel Janco

Janco (Iancu), Marcel (1895-1984), plastic artist, architect, art theorist

He was born in Bucharest. Even from high school he was attracted by the cultural circles from Bucharest and he co-operated with “Simbolul” publication, where he met Tristan Tzara and Ion Vinea. In the same period he took painting and drawing lessons from Iosif Iser.

In 1915 he begins to study architecture at the Polytechnics School in Zurich, where he frequents the group known as „Cabaret Voltaire”. It is here where he met Hans Arp and Hugo Ball and he reencountered Tristan Tzara. With Tzara he founded in 1916 DADA, the avantgarde movement with the aim to destroy all stereotypes and conventions, revolutionizing art and literature. The DADA notebooks published by Iancu and Tzara, brought together the contributions of numerous plastic artists and poets. He becomes member of the group „Das Neue Leben” together with Arp and Giacometti.

He was in Paris from 1920 to 1922 and he declared against the adhesion of DADA movement to surrealism.

He comes back to Romania in 1922 and his first personal exhibition coincides with the constitution of „Contimporanul”, a group of the Romanian avantgarde founded by Ion Vinea, Jacques Costin şi Marcel Janco,which will publish the magazine with the same name. As organizer, Janco participates with his works at all the exhibitions of „Contimporanul” (1924-1930), the first of them having a large international participation and being put together with M. H. Maxy. He participates at group exhibitions to all modern art and avantgarde manifestations in Romania and his works are present in international events as well.

In the interwar period Janco is a very active architect and he designed, together with his brother Iuliu, many of the first modern public and private edifices in Bucharest, at the seaside and on Prahova Valley.   Preoccupied by the in-door architecture, by the project in itself and by town planning architecture, Janco’s style is influenced by Bauhaus and by the functionalist conceptions of Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier.

In 1941, as a follow up of bringing the anti-Jewish law into operation, Janco leaves Romania and settles in Palestine. In 1942 the Art Museum in Tel-Aviv organizes his first personal exhibition followed by a second one in 1948, the year when Janco joins the „Orizonturi Noi” (Ofakim Hadashim) artistic movement. In 1950, at New York, a personal exhibition is organized for Janco. He works on decorative art sketches and costumes for the Habimah Theatre in Tel Aviv.

In 1953 Janco founds in Ein Hod the famous artists colony, a research and creation centre meant to support the renaissance of the Israelite art.  In the same time he teaches at the Pedagogic Seminar in Oranim. He dies in 1984 at Ein Hod.

Being a pioneer of the avantgarde movement, Janco’s style evolved from the expressionism of portraits and landscapes of the interwar period to the abstract style of the Israelite periode.  

Being the founder of the romanian avant-garde, Marcel Janco was present in all the magazines of this movement: „Contimporanul”, „75 HP”, „Integral”, „Unu”, contributing with drawings, mainly portraits, studies, conferences or chronicles. He also published in other magazines such as „Facla”, „Rampa”, „Universul literar”, „Mişcarea literară”, „Cuvântul liber” and „Timpul”. He was a constant presence in the Jewish cultural press such as: „Adam” and „Puntea de Fildeş”; in the latter he also published urban planning projects for the immigrant establishments in Palestine.

Bibliographical sources:

  1. Centenar Marcel Inacu (1895-1995); Bucureşti, Simetria, 1996.
  2. Mendelsohn, Marcel: Marcel Janco; Tel-Aviv, Massadah, 1962.
  3. Pavel, Amelia: Pictori evrei din România; Bucureşti, Hasefer, 1996.
  4. Bucureşti anii 1920-1940 – între avangardă şi modernism; Bucureşti, Simetria, 1994.

Centrul de Studii Ebraice Goldstein Goren, Universitatea din Bucurest