Joseph Csaky
1888-1971

Joseph Csaky was born on March 18, 1888 in Szeged, Hungary. Csaky studied for a short time at l’École des Arts Decoratifs in Budapest.

In 1908 he moved to Paris where his work was influenced by the styles of the French avant-garde. Rodin’s post-romantic, lyric style was supplanted by Maillol’s more rigorous and sensual compositions. Eventually, Cubism also influenced Csaky’s works. In 1909 Picasso produced his first cubist sculpture of a woman’s head and in 1914 Csaky created a similar work titled la Tête Cubiste.

Csaky fought with the French army during World War I. After the war he continued to examine the human form through his cubist sculptures. Csaky began to explore abstraction in 1919. He sculpted stone into tangles of spheres, cones, and cylinders. Around 1928 he returned to a more realistic style of sculpture.

Csaky sculpted in a variety of materials especially hard stones such as onyx, marble and rock crystal. After World War II he created mostly bronze sculptures.

In 1911 he exhibited in the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants. He also exhibited in the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux Arts and the Salon des Tuileries. Moreover, Csaky participated in the collective international exhibitions in Germany in 1932, Holland in 1933, and many other shows during subsequent years. In 1956 he created bas-reliefs for a scholarly group in Amiens.