Marcel Janco (German:[maʁˈsɛlˈjaŋkoː],French:[maʁsɛlʒɑ̃ko]; common rendition^[a] of theRomanian nameMarcel Hermann Iancu^[1][marˈtʃelˈhermanˈjaŋku]; 24 May 1895 – 21 April 1984) was a Romanian and Israelivisual artist, architect andart theorist. He was the co-inventor ofDadaism and a leading exponent ofConstructivism inEastern Europe. In the 1910s, he co-edited, withIon Vinea andTristan Tzara, the Romanian art magazineSimbolul. Janco was a practitioner ofArt Nouveau,Futurism andExpressionism before contributing his painting and stage design to Tzara's literary Dadaism. He parted with Dada in 1919, when he and painterHans Arp founded a Constructivist circle,Das Neue Leben.

Marcel Janco מרסל ינקו
Janco in 1954
Born	Marcel Hermann Iancu 24 May 1895 Bucharest,Romania
Died	21 April 1984(1984-04-21) (aged 88) Ein Hod,Israel
Nationality	Romanian, Israeli
Education	Federal Institute of Technology,Zürich
Known for	Oil painting,collage,relief,illustration,found object art,linocut,woodcut,watercolor,pastel,costume design,interior design,scenic design,ceramic art,fresco,tapestry
Movement	Postimpressionism,Symbolism,Art Nouveau,Cubism,Expressionism,Futurism,Primitivism,Dada,Abstract art,Constructivism,Surrealism,Art Deco,Das Neue Leben,Contimporanul,Criterion,Ofakim Hadashim
Awards	Dizengoff Prize Histadrut Prize Israel Prize

Reunited with Vinea, he foundedContimporanul, the influential tribune of the Romanianavant-garde, advocating a mix of Constructivism, Futurism andCubism. AtContimporanul, Janco expounded a "revolutionary" vision ofurban planning. He designed some of the most innovative landmarks of downtownBucharest. He worked in many art forms, includingillustration, sculpture andoil painting.

Janco was one of the leadingRomanian Jewish intellectuals of his generation. Targeted byantisemitic persecution before and duringWorld War II, heemigrated to the BritishMandate for Palestine in 1941. He won theDizengoff Prize andIsrael Prize, and was a founder ofEin Hod, a utopianart colony.

Marcel Janco was born on 24 May 1895 in Bucharest to anupper middle class Jewish family.^[2] His father, Hermann Zui Iancu, was a textile merchant. His mother, Rachel née Iuster, was fromMoldavia.^[3] The couple lived outsideBucharest's Jewish quarter, on Decebal Street.^[4] He was the oldest of four children. His brothers were Iuliu (Jules) and George. His sister, Lucia, was born in 1900.^[4] The Iancus moved from Decebal to Gândului Street, and then to Trinității, where they built one of the largest home-and-garden complexes in early 20th century Bucharest.^[5] In 1980, Janco revisited his childhood years, writing: "Born as I was in beautiful Romania, into a family of well-to-do people, I had the fortune of being educated in a climate of freedom and spiritual enlightenment. My mother, [...] possessing a genuine musical talent, and my father, a stern man and industrious merchant, had created the conditions favorable for developing all of my aptitudes. [...] I was of a sensitive and emotional nature, a withdrawn child who was predisposed to dreaming and meditating. [...] I grew up [...] dominated by a strong sense of humanity and social justice. The existence of disadvantaged, weak, people, of impoverished workers, of beggars, hurt me and, when compared to our family's decent condition, awoke in me a feeling of guilt."^[6]

Janco attended Gheorghe Șincai School and studied drawing art with the Romanian Jewish painter and cartoonistIosif Iser.^[7] In his teenage years, the family traveled widely, fromAustria-Hungary toSwitzerland,Italy and theNetherlands.^[8] AtGheorghe Lazăr High School, he met several students who would become his artistic companions: Tzara (known then asS. Samyro), Vinea (Iovanaki), writers Jacques G. Costin and Poldi Chapier.^[9] Janco also became friends with pianistClara Haskil, the subject of his first published drawing, which appeared inFlacăra magazine in March 1912.^[10][11]

As a group, the students were under the influence ofRomanian Symbolist clubs, which were at the time the more radical expressions of artistic rejuvenation in Romania. Marcel and Jules Janco's first moment of cultural significance took place in October 1912, when they joined Tzara in editing the Symbolist venueSimbolul, which managed to receive contributions from some of Romania's leading modern poets, fromAlexandru Macedonski toIon Minulescu andAdrian Maniu. The magazine nevertheless struggled to find its voice, alternatingmodernism with the more conventional Symbolism.^[12] Janco was perhaps the main graphic designer ofSimbolul, and he may even have persuaded his wealthy parents to support the venture (which closed down in early 1913).^[13] Unlike Tzara, who refused to look back onSimbolul with anything but embarrassment, Janco proudly regarded it as his first participation in artistic revolution.^[14]

After theSimbolul moment, Marcel Janco worked atSeara daily, where he took further training in draftsmanship.^[15] The newspaper took him in as illustrator, probably as a result of intercessions from Vinea, its literary columnist.^[10] TheirSimbolul colleague Costin joined them asSeara's cultural editor.^[10][16] Janco was also a visitor of the literary and art club meeting at the home of controversial politician and Symbolist poetAlexandru Bogdan-Pitești, who was for a while the manager ofSeara.^[17]

It is possible that, during those years, Tzara and Janco first came to hear and be influenced by theabsurdist prose ofUrmuz, the lonesome civil clerk and amateur writer who would later become the hero of Romanian modernism.^[18] Years later, in 1923, Janco drew an ink portrait of Urmuz.^[19] In maturity, he also remarked that Urmuz was the original rebel figure inRomanian literature.^[20] In the 1910s, Janco was also interested in the parallel development ofFrench literature, and read passionately from such authors asPaul Verlaine andGuillaume Apollinaire.^[21] Another immediate source of inspiration for his attitude on life was provided byFuturism, ananti-establishment movement created inItaly by poetFilippo Tommaso Marinetti and his artists' circle.^[22]

Janco eventually decided to leave Romania, probably because he wanted to attend international events such as theSonderbund exhibit, but also because of quarrels with his father.^[15] In quick succession after the start ofWorld War I, Marcel, Jules and Tzara left Bucharest forZürich. According to various accounts, their departure may have been either a search for new opportunities (abundant in cosmopolitan Switzerland)^[23] or a discreetpacifist statement.^[24] Initially, the Jancos were registered with theUniversity of Zurich, where Marcel took Chemistry courses, before applying to study architecture at theFederal Institute of Technology.^[25] His real ambition, later confessed, was to pursue more training in painting.^[6][26] The two brothers were soon joined by younger Georges Janco, but all three were left without any financial support when the war began hampering Europe's trade routes; until October 1917, both Jules and Marcel (who found it impossible to sell his paintings) earned a living as cabaret performers.^[26][27] Marcel was noted for performing selections fromRomanian folklore and playing theaccordion,^[28] as well as for his rendition ofchansons.^[10][26] It was during this time that the young artist and his brothers began using the consecrated version of the surnameIancu, probably in hopes that it would sound more familiar to foreigners.^[29]

In this context, the Romanians came into contact withHugo Ball and the other independent artists plying their trade at the Malerei building, which soon after became known asCabaret Voltaire. Ball later recalled that four "Oriental" men introduced themselves to him late after a show—the description refers to Tzara, the older Jancos and, probably, the Romanian painterArthur Segal.^[30] Ball found the young painter especially pleasant, and was impressed that, unlike his peers, Janco was melancholy rather than ironic; other participants remember him as a very handsome presence in the group, and he allegedly had the reputation of a "lady-killer".^[31]

Accounts of what happened next differ, but it is presumed that, shortly after the four new participants were accepted, the performances became more daring, and the transition was made from Ball's Futurism to the virulentanti-art performances of Tzara andRichard Huelsenbeck.^[32] With help from Segal and others, Marcel Janco was personally involved in decorating the Cabaret Voltaire.^[28] Its hectic atmosphere would inspire Janco to create an eponymous oil painting, dated 1916 and believed to have been lost.^[33] He was a major contributor to the cabaret's events: he notably carved the grotesque masks worn by performers onstilts, gave "hissing concerts" and, in unison with Huelsenbeck and Tzara, improvised some of the first (and mostlyonomatopoeic) "simultaneous poems" to be read on stage.^[34]

His work with masks became especially influential, opening up a new field of theatrical exploration for theDadaists (as the Cabaret Voltaire crew began calling themselves), and earning special praise from Ball.^[35] Contrary to Ball's later claim of authorship, Janco is also credited with having tailored the "bishop dress", another one of the iconic products of early Dadaism.^[36] The actual birth of "Dadaism", at an unknown date, later formed the basis of disputes between Tzara, Ball, and Huelsenbeck. In this context, Janco is cited as a source for the story according to which the invention of the term "Dada" belonged exclusively to Tzara.^[37] Janco also circulated stories according to which their shows were attended for informative purposes bycommunist theoristVladimir Lenin^[38] and psychiatristCarl Jung.^[26]

His various contributions were harnessed by Dada's international effort of self-promotion. In April 1917, he welcomed the Dada affiliation of Switzerland's ownPaul Klee, calling Klee's contribution to the Dada exhibit a "great event".^[39] His mask designs were popular beyond Europe, and inspired similar creations byMexico'sGermán Cueto, the "Stridentist" painter-puppeteer.^[40] The Dadaist popularization effort received lukewarm responses in Janco's native country, where the traditionalist press expressed alarm at being confronted with Dada precepts.^[41] Vinea himself was ambivalent about the activities of his two friends, preserving a link with poetic tradition which made his publication in Tzara's press impossible.^[42] In a letter to Janco, Vinea spoke about having personally presented one of Janco's posters to modernist poet and art criticTudor Arghezi: "[He] said, critically, that you cannot say whether a person is talented or not on the basis of only one drawing. Rubbish."^[43]

Exhibited at the Dada group shows, Janco also illustrated the Dada advertisements, including an April 1917 program which features his sketches of Ball, Tzara and Ball's actress wifeEmmy Hennings.^[44] The event featured his production ofOskar Kokoschka's farceSphinx und Strohmann, for which he was also thestage designer, and which was turned into one of the most notorious among Dada provocations.^[45] Janco was the director and mask designer for the Dada production for another one of Kokoschka's plays,Job.^[46] He also returned as Tzara's illustrator, producing thelinocuts toThe First Heavenly Adventure of Mr. Antipyrine, having already created the props for its theatrical production.^[47]

As early as 1917, Marcel Janco began taking his distance from the movement he had helped to generate. His work, in bothwoodcut and linocut, continued to be used as the illustration to Dada almanacs for another two years,^[48] but he was more often than not in disagreement with Tzara, while also trying to diversify his style. As noted by critics, he found himself split between the urge to mock traditional art and the belief that something just as elaborate needed to take its place: in the conflict between Tzara'snihilism and Ball'sart for art's sake, Janco tended to support the latter.^[49] In a 1966 text, he further assessed that there were "two speeds" in Dada, and that the "spiritual violence" phase had eclipsed the "best Dadas", including his fellow painterHans Arp.^[50]

Janco recalled: "We [Janco and Tzara] couldn't agree any more on the importance of Dada, and the misunderstandings accumulated."^[51] There were, he noted, "dramatic fights" sparked by Tzara's taste for "bad jokes and scandal".^[52] The artist preserved a grudge, and his retrospective views on Tzara's role in Zürich are often sarcastic, depicting him as an excellent organizer and vindictive self-promoter, but not truly a man of culture;^[53] a few years into the scandal, he even started a rumor that Tzara was illegally trading inopium.^[54] As noted in 2007 by Romanian literary historianPaul Cernat: "All the efforts by Ion Vinea to reunite them [...] would be in vain. Iancu and Tzara would ignore (or banter) each other for the rest of their lives".^[55] With this split, there came a certain classicization in Marcel Janco's discourse. In February 1918, Janco was even invited to lecture at hisalma mater, where he spoke about modernism andauthenticity in art as related phenomena, drawing comparisons between theRenaissance andAfrican art.^[56] However, having decided to focus on his other projects, Janco nearly abandoned his studies, and failed his final exam.^[57]

In this context, he moved closer to the cell of post-Dada Constructivists exhibiting collectively asNeue Kunst ("New Art")—Arp,Fritz Baumann,Hans Richter,Otto Morach.^[58] As a result, Janco was made a member ofDas Neue Leben faction, which supported an educational approach to modern art, coupled withsocialist ideals and Constructivist aesthetics.^[59] In itsart manifesto, the group declared its ideal of "rebuild[ing] the human community" in preparation for the end ofcapitalism.^[60] Janco was even affiliated withArtistes Radicaux, a more politically inclined section ofDas Neue Leben, where his colleagues included other former Dadas: Arp, Hans Richter,Viking Eggeling.^[61] TheArtistes Radicaux were in touch with theGerman Revolution, and Richter, who worked for the short-livedBavarian Soviet Republic, even offered Janco and the others virtual teaching positions at theAcademy of Fine Arts under a workers' government.^[62]

Janco made his final contribution to the Dada adventure in April 1919, when he designed the masks for a major Dada event organized by Tzara at the Saal zur Kaufleutern, and which degenerated into an infamous mass brawl.^[63] By May, he was mandated byDas Neue Leben to create and publish a journal for the movement. Although this never saw print, the preparations placed Janco in contact with the representatives of various modernist currents:Arthur Segal,Walter Gropius,Alexej von Jawlensky, Oscar Lüthy andEnrico Prampolini.^[64] This period also witnessed the start of a friendly relationship between Janco and theExpressionist artists who published inHerwarth Walden's magazineDer Sturm.^[65]

A little more than a year after the end of war, in December 1919, Marcel and Jules left Switzerland forFrance. After passing throughParis, the painter was inBéthune, where he married Amélie Micheline "Lily" Ackermann, in what was described as a gesture of fronde against his father. The girl was aSwiss Catholic of lowly condition, who had first met the Jancos atDas Neue Leben.^[66] Janco was probably in Béthune for a longer while: he was listed as one of those considered for helping to rebuild war-affectedFrench Flanders, redesigned the Chevalier-Westrelin store inHinges, and was perhaps the co-owner of an architectural enterprise,Ianco & Déquire.^[67] It is not unlikely that Janco followed with curiosity the activities of Dada's Parisian cell, which were overseen by Tzara and his pupilAndré Breton, and he is known to have impressed Breton with his own architectural projects.^[68] He was also announced, with Tzara, as a contributor to the post-Dada magazineL'Esprit Nouveau, published byPaul Dermée.^[69] Nevertheless, Janco was invited to exhibit elsewhere, rallying withSection d'Or, a Cubist collective.^[68]

Late in 1921, Janco and his wife left for Romania, where they had a second marriage to seal their union in front of familial disputes.^[70] Janco was soon reconciled with his parents, and, although still unlicensed as an architect, began receiving his first commissions, some of which came from within his own family.^[71][72] His first known design, constructed in 1922 and officially registered as the work of one I. Rosenthal, is a group of seven alley houses, 3 pairs and corner residence, on his father Hermann Iancu's property, at 79 Maximilian Popper Street (prev Trinității Street 29); one of these became his new home. Essentially traditional in style, they are also somewhat stylised, recalling the plainness of the English Arts & Crafts or the Czech 'Cubist' style.^[73]

Soon after making his comeback, Marcel Janco reconnected himself with the localavant-garde salons, and had his first Romanian exhibits, at theMaison d'Art club in Bucharest.^[74] His friends and collaborators, among them actress Dida Solomon and journalist-director Sandu Eliad, would describe him as exceptionally charismatic and knowledgeable.^[75] In December 1926, he was present at the Hasefer Art Show in Bucharest.^[76] Around that year, Janco took commissions as an art teacher at his studio in Bucharest—in the words of his pupil, the future painterHedda Sterne, these were informal: "We were given easels, etc. but nobody looked, nobody advised us."^[77]

From his position as Constructivist mentor and international artist, Janco proceeded to network between Romanian modernist currents, and joined up with his old colleague Vinea. Early in 1922, the two men founded a political and art magazine, the influentialContimporanul—historically, the longest-lived venue of the Romanian avant-garde.^[78] Janco was abroad that year, as one of guests at the First Constructivist Congress, convened by Dutch artistTheo van Doesburg inDüsseldorf.^[79] He was in Zürich around 1923, receiving the visit of a compatriot, writerVictor Eftimiu, who declared him a hard-working artist able to reconcile the modern with the traditional.^[80]

Contimporanul followed Janco's Constructivist affiliation. Initially a venue for socialist satire and political commentary, it reflected Vinea's strong dislike for the rulingNational Liberal Party.^[81] However, by 1923, the journal became increasingly cultural and artistic in its revolt, headlining with translations from van Doesburg and Breton, publishing Vinea's own homage to Futurism, and featuring illustrations and international notices which Janco may have handpicked himself.^[82] Some researchers have attributed the change exclusively to the painter's growing say in editorial policy.^[83][84] Janco was at the time in correspondence with Dermée, who was to contribute theContimporanul anthology of modernFrench poetry,^[85] and with fellow painterMichel Seuphor, who collected Janco's Constructivist sculptures.^[86] He maintained a link betweenContimporanul andDer Sturm, which republished his drawings alongside the contributions of various Romanian avant-garde writers and artists.^[87] The reciprocal popularization was taken up byMa, theVienna-based tribune ofHungarian modernists, which also published samples of Janco's graphics.^[88] Owing to Janco's resentments and Vinea's apprehension, the magazine never covered the issuing of new Dada manifestos, and responded critically to Tzara's new versions of Dada history.^[89]

Marcel Janco also took charge ofContimporanul's business side, designing its offices on Imprimerie Street and overseeing the publication of postcards.^[90] Over the years, his own contributions toContimporanul came to include some 60 illustrations, some 40 articles on art and architectural topics, and a number of his architectural designs or photographs of buildings erected from them.^[91] He oversaw one of the journal's first special issues, dedicated to "Modern Architecture", and notably hosting his own contributions to architectural theory, as well as his design of a "country workshop" for Vinea's use.^[92] Other issues also featured his essay on film and theater, his furniture designs, and his interview with the French CubistRobert Delaunay.^[93] Janco was also largely responsible for theContimporanul issue on Surrealism, which included his interviews with writers such asJoseph Delteil, and his inquiry about the publisher Simon Krà.^[94]

Together with Romanian Cubist painterM. H. Maxy, Janco was personally involved in curating theContimporanul International Art Exhibit of 1924.^[95] This event reunited the major currents of Europe's modern art, reflectingContimporanul's eclectic agenda and international profile. It hosted samples of works by leading modernists: the Romanians Segal,Constantin Brâncuși,Victor Brauner,János Mattis-Teutsch,Milița Petrașcu, alongside Arp, Eggeling, Klee, Richter,Lajos Kassák andKurt Schwitters.^[96] The exhibit included samples of Janco's work in furniture design, and featured his managerial contribution to a Dada-like opening party, co-produced by him, Maxy, Vinea and journalistEugen Filotti.^[97] He was also involved in preparing the magazine's theatrical parties, including the 1925 production ofA Merry Death, byNikolai Evreinov; Janco was the set andcostume designer, and Eliad the director.^[98] An unusual echo of the exhibit came in 1925, whenContimporanul published a photograph of Brâncuși'sPrincess X sculpture. TheRomanian Police saw this as a sexually explicit artwork, and Vinea and Janco were briefly taken into custody.^[99] Janco was a dedicated admirer of Brâncuși, visiting him in Paris and writing inContimporanul about Brâncuși's "spirituality of form" theories.^[100]

In their work as cultural campaigners, Vinea and Janco even collaborated with75 HP, a periodical edited by poetIlarie Voronca, which was nominally anti-Contimporanul and pro-Dada.^[101] Janco was also an occasional presence in the pages ofPunct, the Dadaist-Constructivist paper put out by the socialistScarlat Callimachi. It was here that he notably published articles on architectural styles and alampoon, inFrench andGerman, titledT.S.F. Dialogue entre le bourgeois mort et l'apôtre de la vie nouvelle ("Cablegram. The Dialogue between a Dead Bourgeois and the Apostle of New Living").^[83][102] In addition, his graphic work was popularized by Voronca's other magazine, the Futurist tribuneIntegral.^[103] Janco was also called upon by authorsIon Pillat andPerpessicius to illustrate theirAntologia poeților de azi ("The Anthology of Present-Day Poets"). His portraits of the writers included, drawn in sharply modernist style, were received with amusement by the traditionalist public.^[104] In 1926, Janco further antagonized the traditionalists by publishing sensual drawings forCamil Baltazar's book of erotic poems,Strigări trupești lîngă glezne ("Bodily Exhortations around the Ankles").^[105]

Some time in the late 1920s, Janco set up an architectural studioBirou de Studii Moderne (Office of Modern Studies), a partnership with his brother Jules (Iulius), a venture often identified by the nameMarcel Iuliu Iancu, combining the two brothers as one.^[106] Heralding the change of architectural tastes with his articles inContimporanul, Marcel Janco described Romania's capital as a chaotic, inharmonious, backward town, in which the traffic was hampered by carts andtrams, a city in need of Modernist revolution.^[107]

Profiting from the building boom ofGreater Romania, and the rising popularity offunctionalism, Janco'sBirou received commissions from 1926 onwards that were occasional and small-scale. Compared with mainstream functionalist architects likeHoria Creangă,Duiliu Marcu or Jean Monda,^[108] the Jancos had a decisive role in popularizing the functionalist versions of Constructivism or Cubism, designing the first examples of this new stylistic approach to be built in Romania. The first clear, though unheralded, expression of Modernism in Romania, was the construction in 1926 of a small apartment building near his earlier houses, also built for his father Herman, with an apartment for Herman, one for Marcel as well as his rooftop studio. The structure simply follows the curved line of the corner lot, the severe elevations devoid of decoration, enlivened only by a triangular bay window and balcony above, and a scheme of different colours (now lost) applied to the three wall areas differentiated by slight variations on depth.

A major breakthrough was his Villa for Jean Fuchs, built in 1927 on Negustori Street. Its cosmopolitan owner allowed the artist complete freedom in designing the building, and a budget of 1 millionlei, and he created what is often described as the first Constructivist (and therefore Modernist) structure in Bucharest.^[109][71] The design was quite unlike anything seen in Bucharest before, the front facade composed of complex overlapping, projecting and receding rectangular volumes, horizontal and corner windows, three circular porthole windows, and stepped flat roof areas including a rooftop lookout. The result caused a stir in the neighborhood, and the press found it to be reminiscent of a "morgue" and a "crematorium".^[71] The architect and his patrons were undeterred by such reactions, and the Janco firm received commissions to build similar villas.

Until 1933, when Marcel Janco finally received his certification, his designs continued to be officially recorded under different names, most usually attributed to a Constantin Simionescu.^[71] This had little effect on theBirou's output: by the time of his last known design in 1938, Janco and his brother are thought to have designed some 40 permanent or temporary structures in Bucharest, many in the wealthier northern residential districts of Aviatorilor and Primaverii, but by far the largest concentration in or to the north of the Jewish Quarter, just the east of the old town centre, reflecting the family and community ties of many of his commissions.^[71]

A series of modernist villas for sometimes wealthy clients followed despite the Fuchs controversy.^[110] The Villa Henri Daniel (1927, demolished) on Strada Ceres returned to the almost unadorned flat facade, enlivened by a play of horizontal and vertical lines, while the Maria Lambru Villa (1928), on Popa Savu Street, was a simplified version of the Fuchs design. The Florica Chihăescu house onȘoseaua Kiseleff (1929) is surprisingly formal with a central porch below strip windows, and also marks collaboration with Milița Petrașcu from the 1924 exhibition who provided some statuary (now lost).^[111] The Villa Bordeanu (1930) on Labirint Street plays with symmetrical formality while the Villa Paul Iluta (1931, altered) employs bold rectangular volumes over three floors, as does the Paul Wexler Villa (1931), on Silvestru and Grigore Mora streets.^[71] The Jean Juster Villa (1931) nearby at Strada Silvestru 75 combines the bold rectangular volumes with a projecting semi-circular one. Another project was a house for hisSimbolul friend Poldi Chapier; located on Ipătescu Alley and finished in 1929,^[71] this is occasionally described as "Bucharest's first Cubist lodging", even though the Villa Fuchs was two year earlier.^[112] In 1931 he designed his first tenement/apartment building at Strada Caimatei 20, a small stack of 3 apartments of boldly projecting forms, developed himself for his family with other floors to rent, in the name of his wife Clara Janco. It is thought the studios for his Birou were on the top floor, and the design was published inContimporanul in 1932.^[113] Two more followed in 1933 on Strada Paleologu next to each other, simpler in conception, with a second one in his wife's name, and one for Jaques Costin - which features a bas relief panel of women working with wool by Militia Pătraşcu by the door.^[114] These projects are joined by a privatesanatorium ofPredeal, Janco's only design outside of Bucharest. Built in 1934^[115] at the base of a wooded hill, it has the sweeping horizontals of international streamlined Modernism, with Janco's innovation of diagonally placed rooms creating a striking zigzag effect.^[109]

Janco had one daughter from his marriage to Lily Ackermann, who signed her nameJosine Ianco-Starrels (b. 1926), and was raised a Catholic.^[116] Her sister Claude-Simone had died in infancy.^[117] By the mid-1920s, Marcel and Lily Janco were estranged: already by the time of their divorce (1930), she was living by herself in aBrașov home designed by Janco.^[117] The artist remarried to Clara "Medi" Goldschlager, the sister of his old friend Jacques G. Costin. The couple had a girl, Deborah Theodora ("Dadi" for short).^[117]

With his new family, Janco lived a comfortable life, traveling throughout Europe and spending his summer vacations in the resort town ofBalchik.^[117] The Jancos and the Costins also shared ownership of a country estate: known asJacquesmara,^[118] it was located inBudeni-Comana,Giurgiu County.^[6][10] The house is especially known for hostingClara Haskil during one of her triumphant returns to Romania.^[10]

Janco was still active as the art editor ofContimporanul during its final and most eclectic series of 1929,^[119] when he took part in selecting new young contributors, such as publicist and art criticBarbu Brezianu.^[120] At that junction, the magazine triumphantly published a "Letter to Janco", in which the formerly traditionalist architectGeorge Matei Cantacuzino spoke about his colleague's decade-long contribution to the development of Romanian functionalism.^[71][121] Beyond hisContimporanul affiliation, Janco rallied with the Bucharest collectiveArta Nouă ("New Art"), also joined by Maxy, Brauner, Mattis-Teutsch, Petrașcu,Nina Arbore, Cornelia Babic-Daniel, Alexandru Brătășanu, Olga Greceanu, Corneliu Michăilescu,Claudia Millian, Tania Șeptilici and others.^[122]

Janco and some other regulars ofContimporanul also reached out to the Surrealist faction atunu review—Janco is notably mentioned as a "contributor" on the cover ofunu, Summer 1930 issue, where all 8 containing pages were purposefully left blank.^[123] Janco prepared woodcuts for the first edition of Vinea's novelParadisul suspinelor ("The Paradise of Sobs"), printed with Editura Cultura Națională in 1930,^[124][125] and for Vinea's poems in their magazine versions.^[126] His drawings were used in illustrating two volumes of interviews with writers, compiled byContimporanul sympathizerFelix Aderca,^[127] and Costin's only volume of prose, the 1931Exerciții pentru mâna dreaptă ("Right-handed Exercises").^[124][128]

Janco attended the 1930 reunion organized byContimporanul in honor of the visiting FuturistFilippo Tommaso Marinetti, and gave a welcoming speech.^[129] Marinetti was again praised by theContimporanul group (Vinea, Janco, Petrașcu, Costin) in February 1934, in anopen letter stating: "We are soldiers of the same army."^[130] These developments created a definitive split in Romania's avant-garde movement, and contributed toContimporanul's eventual fall: the Surrealists and socialists atunu condemned Vinea and the rest for having established, through Marinetti, a connection with theItalian fascists.^[131] After the incidents, Janco's art was openly questioned byunu contributors such asStephan Roll.^[132]

AlthoughContimporanul went bankrupt, an artistic faction of the same name survived until 1936.^[133] During the interval, Janco found other backers in the specialized art and architecture magazines, such asOrașul,Arta și Orașul,Rampa,Ziarul Științelor și al Călătoriilor.^[71] In 1932, his villa designs were included by Alberto Sartoris in his guide to modern architecture,Gli elementi dell'architettura razionale.^[71][134] The early 1930s also witnessed Janco's participation with the literary and art societyCriterion, whose leader was philosopherMircea Eliade. The group was mostly a venue Romania's intellectual youth, interested in redefining the national specificity around modernist values, but also offered a venue for dialogue between thefar right and thefar left.^[135] With Maxy, Petrașcu, Mac Constantinescu,Petre Iorgulescu-Yor, Margareta Sterian and others, Janco represented the art collective atCriterion, which, in 1933, exhibited at Dalles Hall, Bucharest.^[136] The same year, Janco erected a blockhouse for Costin (Paleologu Street, 5), which doubled as his own working address and the administrative office ofContimporanul.^[71]

From 1929, Janco's efforts to reform the capital received administrative support fromDem. I. Dobrescu, theleft-wingMayor of Bucharest.^[137] 1934 was the year when Janco returned as architectural theorist, withUrbanism, nu romantism ("Urbanism, Not Romanticism"), an essay in the reviewOrașul. Janco's text restated the need and opportunity for modernist urban planning, especially in Bucharest.^[71]Orașul, edited by Eliad and writerCicerone Theodorescu, introduced him as a world-famous architect and "revolutionary", praising the diversity of his contributions.^[71] In 1935, Janco published the pamphletCătre o arhitectură a Bucureștilor ("Toward an Architecture of Bucharest"), which recommended a "utopian" project to solve the city's social crisis.^[71][75] Like some of hisContimporanul colleagues, he was by then collaborating withCuvântul Liber, the self-styled "moderate left-wing review" and withIsac Ludo's modernist magazine,Adam.^[138]

The mid-1930s was his most prolific period as an architect, designing more villas, more small apartment buildings, and larger ones as well.^[110] His Bazaltin Company headquarters, a mixed use project os offices and apartments that rose up to a topmost 9th floor onJianu Square, his largest and most prominent, and still most well known (albeit abandoned), was built in 1935. The Solly Gold apartments on a corner on Hristo Botev Avenue (1934) is his best known smaller block, with interlocking angular volumes and balconies on all five sides visible, a double level apartment on the top, and a panel depicting Diana by Militia Pătraşcu by the door. Another well known design is the David Haimovici (1937) on Strada Olteni, its well kept smooth grey walls outlined in white, and a Mediterranean pergola on the top floor. The seven level Frida Cohen tower (1935) dominates a small roundabout on Stelea Spătarul Street with its curved balconies, while a six level one on Luchian Street, probably a real estate investment of his own,^[139] is more restrained, with long strip windows the main feature, and another panel by Milita Petraşcu in the lobby. Villas included one for Florica Reich (1936) on Grigore Mora, a simple rectangular volume with a double-height corner cut-out topped by an inventive gridded glass roof, and one for Hermina Hassner (1937), almost square in plan, and with almost the opposite effect, a first floor corner balcony wall pierced by a grid of small circular openings.^[71] Probably commissioned by Mircea Eliade, in 1935 Janco also designed the Alexandrescu Building, a severe four storey tenement for Eliade's sister and her family.^[71] One of his last projects was a collaboration withMilita Petrascu for her family home and studio, the Villa Emil Pătraşcu (1937) at Pictor Ion Negulici Street 19, a boldly blocky design.^[140]

Together with Margareta Sterian, who became his disciple, Janco was working on artistic projects involvingceramics andfresco.^[141] In 1936, some works by Janco, Maxy and Petrașcu represented Romania at the Futurist art show inNew York City.^[142] Throughout the period, Janco was still on demand as a draftsman: in 1934, his depiction of poet Constantin Nissipeanu opened the first print of Nisspeanu'sMetamorfoze;^[143] in 1936, he published a posthumous portrait of writerMateiu Caragiale, to illustrate the Perpessicius edition of Caragiale's poems.^[144] His prints also served to illustrateSadismul adevărului ("The Sadism of Truth"), written byunu founderSașa Pană.^[145]

By that time, the Janco family was faced with the rise ofantisemitism, and alarmed by the growth offascist movements such as theIron Guard. In the 1920s, theContimporanul leadership had sustained axenophobic attack from the traditionalist reviewȚara Noastră. It cited Vinea'sGreek origins as a cause for concern,^[146] and described Janco as the "painter of the cylinder", and an alien, cosmopolitan, Jew.^[147] That objection to Janco's work, and toContimporanul in general, was also taken up in 1926 by the anti-modernist essayistI. E. Torouțiu.^[148]Criterion itself split in 1934, when some of its members openly rallied with the Iron Guard, and the radical press accused the remaining ones of promotingpederasty through their public performances.^[149] Josine was expelled fromCatholic school in 1935, the reason invoked being that her father was a Jew.^[150]

For Marcel Janco, the events were an opportunity to discuss his own assimilation into Romanian society: in one of his conferences, he defined himself as "an artist who is a Jew", rather than "a Jewish artist".^[150] He later confessed his dismay at the attacks targeting him: "nowhere, never, in Romania or elsewhere in Europe, during peacetime or the cruel years of [World War I], did anyone ask me whether I was a Jew or... a kike. [...]Hitler's Romanian minions managed to change this climate, to turn Romania into an antisemitic country."^[6] The ideological shift, he recalled, destroyed his relationships with theContimporanul poetIon Barbu, who reportedly concluded, after admiring a 1936 exhibit: "Too bad you're a kike!"^[6] At around that time, pianist and fascist sympathizerCella Delavrancea also assessed that Janco's contribution to theater was the prime example of "Jewish" and "bastard" art.^[151]

When the antisemiticNational Christian Party took power, Janco was coming to terms with theZionist ideology, describing theLand of Israel as the "cradle" and "salvation" of Jews the world over.^[6][152] At Budeni, he and Costin hostedBetar paramilitaries, who were attempting to organize a Jewish self-defense movement.^[6] Janco subsequently made his first trip toBritish Palestine, and began arranging his and his family's relocation there.^{[6][118][152][153]} Although Jules and his family emigrated soon after the visit, Marcel returned to Bucharest and, shortly before Jewish art was officially censored, had his one last exhibit there, together with Milița Petrașcu.^[118] He was also working on one of his last, and most experimental, contributions to Romanian architecture: the Hermina Hassner Villa (which also hosted his 1928 painting of theJardin du Luxembourg), the Emil Petrașcu residence,^[71] and a tower behind theAtheneum.^[154]

In 1939, theNazi-alignedIon Gigurtu cabinet enforcedracial discrimination throughout the land, and, as a consequence,Jaquesmara wasconfiscated by the state.^[118] Many of the Bucharest villas he had designed, which had Jewish landlords, were also taken over forcefully by the authorities.^[71] Some months after, theNational Renaissance Front government prevented Janco from publishing his work anywhere in Romania, but he was still able to find a niche atTimpul daily—itsanti-fascist manager,Grigore Gafencu, gave imprimatur to sketches, including the landscapes of Palestine.^[153] He was also finding work with theghettoized Jewish community, designing the newBarașeum Studio, located in the vicinity of Caimatei.^[153]

During the first two years ofWorld War II, although he prepared his documents and received a special passport,^[155] Janco was still undecided. He was still in Romania when the Iron Guard established itsNational Legionary State. He was receiving and helping Jewish refugees fromNazi-occupied Europe, and hearing from them about theconcentration camp system, but refused offers to emigrate into a neutral orAllied country.^[6] His mind was made up in January 1941, when the Iron Guard's struggle for maintaining power resulted in theBucharest Pogrom. Janco himself was a personal witness to the violent events, noting for instance that the Nazi German bystanders would declare themselves impressed by the Guard's murderous efficiency, or how the thugs made an example of the Jews trapped in theChoral Temple.^[156] The Străulești Abattoir murders and the stories of Jewish survivors also inspired several of Janco's drawings.^[157] One of the victims of the Abattoir massacre was Costin's brother Michael Goldschlager. He was kidnapped from his house by Guardsmen,^[6] and his corpse was among those found hanging on hooks, mutilated in such way as to mock the Jewishkashrut ritual.^[152][158]

Janco later stated that, over the course of a few days, the pogrom had made him a militant Jew.^[6][159] With clandestine assistance fromEngland,^[6] Marcel, Medi and their two daughters left Romania throughConstanța harbor, and arrived inTurkey on 4 February 1941. They then made their way toIslahiye andFrench Syria, crossing through theKingdom of Iraq andTransjordan, and, on 23 February, ended their journey inTel Aviv.^[160] The painter found his first employment as architect for Tel Aviv's city government, sharing the office with aHolocaust survivor who informed him about the genocide inoccupied Poland.^[6] In Romania, the new regime ofConducătorIon Antonescu planned a new series of antisemitic measures and atrocities (seeHolocaust in Romania). In November 1941, Costin and his wife Laura, who had stayed behind in Bucharest, were among those deported to the occupied region ofTransnistria.^[160] Costin survived, joining up with his sister and with Janco in Palestine, but later moved back to Romania.^[161]

During his years in British Palestine, Marcel Janco became a noted participant in the development oflocal Jewish art. He was one of the four Romanian Jewish artists who marked the development of Zionist arts and crafts before 1950—the others were Jean David,Reuven Rubin, Jacob Eisenscher;^[162] David, who was Janco's friend in Bucharest, joined him in Tel Aviv after an adventurous trip and internment inCyprus.^[163] In particular, Janco was an early influence on three Zionist artists who had arrived to Palestine from other regions:Avigdor Stematsky,Yehezkel Streichman andJoseph Zaritsky.^[164] He was soon recognized as a leading presence in the artist community, receiving Tel Aviv Municipality'sDizengoff Prize in 1945, and again in 1946.^[165]

These contacts were not interrupted by the1948 Arab–Israeli War, and Janco was a figure of prominence in the art scene of independent Israel. The new nation enlisted his services as planner, and he was assigned to the team ofArieh Sharon, being tasked with designing and preserving theIsraeli national parks.^[166] As a result of his intervention, in 1949 the area ofOld Jaffa was turned into an artist-friendly community.^[166] He was again a recipient of the Dizengoff Prize in 1950 and 1951, resuming his activity as an art promoter and teacher, with lectures at theSeminar HaKibbutzim college (1953).^[165] His artwork was again on show in New York City for a 1950 retrospective.^[152] In 1952 he was one of three artists whose work was displayed at the Israeli pavilion at theVenice Biennale, the first year Israel had its own pavilion at the Biennale. The other two artists were Reuven Rubin andMoshe Mokady.^[167]

Marcel Janco began his main Israeli project in May 1953, after he had been mandated by the Israeli government to prospect the mountainous regions and delimit a new national park south ofMount Carmel.^[168] In his own account (since disputed by others),^[166] he came across the deserted village ofEin Hod, whosePalestinian inhabitants had been largely displaced during the1948 expulsion. Janco felt that the place should not be demolished, obtaining a lease on it from the authorities, and rebuilt the place with other Israeli artists who worked there on weekends;^[169] Janco's main residence continued to be in the neighborhood ofRamat Aviv.^[154] His plot of land in Ein Hod was previously owned by the Arab Abu Faruq, who died in 1991 at theJenin refugee camp.^[170] Janco became the site's first mayor, reorganizing it into a utopian society,art colony and tourist attraction, and instituted the strict code of requirements for one's settlement in Ein Hod.^[171]

Also in the 1950s, Janco was a founding member ofOfakim Hadashim ("New Horizons") group, comprising Israeli painters committed toabstract art, and headed by Zaritsky. Although he shared the artistic vision, Janco probably did not approve of Zaritsky's rejection of allnarrative art and, in 1956, left the group.^[172][173] He continued to explore new media, and, together with artisan Itche Mambush, he created a series of reliefs andtapestries.^[154][174] Janco also drew inpastel, and created humorous illustrations toDon Quixote.^[155]

His individual contributions received further praise from his peers and his public: in 1958, he was honored with theHistadrut union's prize.^[165] Over the next two decades, Marcel Janco had several new personal exhibits, notably in Tel Aviv (1959, 1972),Milan (1960) and Paris (1963).^[152] Having attended the 1966Venice Biennale,^[175] he won theIsrael Prize of 1967, in recognition of his work as painter.^{[152][165][166][174][176]}

In 1960, Janco's presence in Ein Hod was challenged by the returning Palestinians, who tried to reclaim the land. He organized a community defense force, headed by sculptor Tuvia Iuster, which guarded Ein Hod untilIsrael Police intervened against the protesters.^[177] Janco was generally tolerant of those Palestinians who set up the small rival community ofEin Hawd: he notably maintained contacts with tribal leader Abu Hilmi and with Arab landscape artist Muin Zaydan Abu al-Hayja, but the relationship between the two villages was generally distant.^[178] Janco has also been described as "disinterested" in the fate of his Arab neighbors.^[166]

For a second time, Janco reunited with Costin when the latter fledCommunist Romania. The writer was a political refugee, singled out at home for"Zionist" activities, and implicated in theshow trial of Milița Petrașcu.^[128][179] Costin later left Israel, settling in France.^[10][180] Janco himself made efforts to preserve a link with Romania, and sent albums to his artist friends beyond theIron Curtain.^[181] He met with folklorist and former political prisonerHarry Brauner,^[175] poet Ștefan Iureș, painter Matilda Ulmu and art historian Geo Șerban.^[154][155] His studio was home to other Jewish Romanian emigrants fleeing communism, including female artist Liana Saxone-Horodi.^[154][174] From Israel, he spoke about his Romanian experience at length, first in an interview with writer Solo Har and then in a 1980 article forShevet Romania magazine.^[6] A year later, from his home inAustralia, the modernist promoterLucian Boz headlined a selection of his works with Janco's portrait of the author.^[182]

Also in 1981, a selection of Janco's drawings of Holocaust crimes was issued with theAm Oved albumKav Haketz/On the Edge.^[6] The following year, he received the "Worthy of Tel Aviv" distinction, granted by the city government.^[165] One of the last public events to be attended by Marcel Janco was the creation of the Janco-Dada Museum at his home in Ein Hod.^{[71][152][154][174][176]} By then, Janco is said to have been concerned about the overall benefits of Jewish relocation into an Arab village.^[183] Among his final appearances in public was a 1984 interview withSchweizer Fernsehen station, in which he revisited his Dada activities.^[26]

The earliest works by Janco show the influence ofIosif Iser, adopting the visual trappings ofPostimpressionism and illustrating, for the first time in Janco's career, the interest in moderncomposition techniques;^[184] Liana Saxone-Horodi believes that Iser's manner is most evident in Janco's 1911 work,Self-portrait with Hat, preserved at the Janco-Dada Museum.^[174] Around 1913, Janco was in more direct contact with the French sources of Iser's Postimpressionism, having by then discovered on his own the work ofAndré Derain.^[15] However, his covers and vignettes forSimbolul are generallyArt Nouveau andSymbolist to the point of pastiche. Researcher Tom Sandqvist presumes that Janco was in effect following his friends' command, as "his own preferences were soon closer toCézanne andcubist-influenced modes of expression".^[185]

Futurism was thrown into the mix, a fact acknowledged by Janco during his 1930 encounter with Marinetti: "we were nourished by [Futurist] ideas and empowered to be enthusiastic."^[22] A third major source for Janco's imagery wasExpressionism, initially coming to him from bothDie Brücke artists andOskar Kokoschka,^[186] and later reactivated by his contacts atDer Sturm.^[65] Among his early canvasses, the self-portraits and the portraits of clowns have been discussed as particularly notable samples of Romanian Expressionism.^[187]

The influence of Germanic Postimpressionism on Janco's art was crystallized during his studies at theFederal Institute of Technology. His more important teachers there, Sandqvist observes, were sculptor Johann Jakob Graf and architectKarl Moser—the latter in particular, for his ideas on the architecturalGesamtkunstwerk. Sandqvist suggests that, after modernizing Moser's ideas, Janco first theorized thatAbstract-Expressionistic decorations needed to an integral part of the basic architectural design.^[188] In paintings from Janco'sCabaret Voltaire period, the figurative element is not canceled, but usually subdued: the works show a mix of influences, primarily from Cubism or Futurism, and have been described by Janco's colleague Arp as "zigzagnaturalism".^[189] His series on dancers, painted before 1917 and housed by theIsrael Museum, moves between the atmospheric qualities of a Futurism filtered through Dada and Janco's first experiments in purely abstract art.^[190]

His assimilation of Expressionism has led scholarJohn Willett to discuss Dadaism as visually an Expressionist sub-current,^[191] and, in retrospect, Janco himself claimed that Dada was not as much a fully-fledged new artistic style as "a force coming from the physical instincts", directed against "everything cheap".^[192] However, his own work also features the quintessentially Dadafound object art, or everyday objects rearranged as art—reportedly, he was the first Dadaist to experiment in such manner.^[193] His other studies, incollage andrelief, have been described by reviewers as "a personal synthesis which is identifiable as his own to this day",^[194] and ranked among "the most courageous and original experiments in abstract art."^[71]

TheContimporanul years were a period of artistic exploration. Although a Constructivist architect and designer, Janco was still identifiable as an Expressionist in his ink-drawn portraits of writers and in some of his canvasses. According to scholar Dan Grigorescu, his essays of the time fluctuate away from Constructivism, and adopt ideas common in Expressionism,Surrealism, or even theByzantine revival suggested by anti-modernist reviews.^[195] HisRolling the Dice piece is a meditation on the tragedy of human existence, which reinterprets the symbolism ofzodiacs^[196] and probably alludes to the seedier side of urban life.^[197] The Expressionist transfiguration of shapes was especially noted in his drawings ofMateiu Caragiale andStephan Roll, created from harsh and seemingly spontaneous lines.^[186] The style was ridiculed at the time by traditionalist poetGeorge Topîrceanu, who wrote that, inAntologia poeților de azi,Ion Barbu looked "aMongolian bandit",Felix Aderca "a shoemaker's apprentice", andAlice Călugăru "an alcoholic fishwife".^[104] Such views were contrasted byPerpessicius' publicized belief that Janco was "the purest artist", his drawings evidencing the "great vital force" of his subjects.^[198] Topîrceanu's claim is contradicted by literary historian Barbu Cioculescu, who finds theAntologia drawings: "exquisitely synthetic—some of them masterpieces; take it from someone who has seen from up close many of the writers portrayed".^[199]

As a Dada, Janco was interested in the raw and primitive art, generated by "the instinctive power of creation", and he creditedPaul Klee with having helped him "interpret the soul of primitive man".^[39][200] A distinct application of Dada was his own work with masks, seen byHugo Ball as having generated fascination with their unusual "kinetic power", and useful for performing "larger-than-life characters and passions."^[201] However, Janco's understanding ofAfrican masks,idols andritual was, according to art historians Mark Antliff and Patricia Leighten, "deeply romanticized" and "reductive".^[202]

At the end of the Dada episode, Janco also took his growing interest inprimitivism to the level of academia: in his 1918 speech at the Zürich Institute, he declared thatAfrican,Etruscan,Byzantine andRomanesque arts were more genuine and "spiritual" than the Renaissance and its derivatives, while also issuing special praise for the modern spirituality of Derain,Vincent van Gogh,Pablo Picasso andHenri Matisse; his lecture rated all Cubists above allImpressionists.^[203] In his contribution toDas Neue Leben theory, he spoke about a return to thehandicrafts, ending the "divorce" between art and life.^[204] Art critic Harry Seiwert also notes that Janco's art also reflected his contact with various other alternative models, found inAncient Egyptian andFar Eastern art, in the paintings ofCimabue andEl Greco, and inCloisonnism.^[205] Seiwert and Sandqvist both propose that Janco's work had other enduring connections with the visual conventions ofHassidism and the dark tones often favored by 20th-centuryJewish art.^[206]

Around 1919, Janco had come to describe Constructivism as a needed transition from "negative" Dada, an idea also pioneered by his colleaguesKurt Schwitters andTheo van Doesburg, and finding an early expression in Janco's plaster reliefSoleil jardin clair (1918).^[207] In part, Janco's post-Dadaism responded to the socialist ideals of Constructivism. According to Sandqvist, his affiliation toDas Neue Leben and his sporadic contacts with theArt Soviet ofMunich meant that he was trying to "adjust to the spirit of the age."^[208] Historian Hubert F. van der Berg also notes that the socialist ideal of "a new life", implicitly adopted by Janco, was a natural peacetime development of Dada's discourse about "the new man".^[209]

The activity atContimporanul cemented Janco's belief in primitivism and the values ofoutsider art. In a 1924 piece, he argued: "Theart of children, folk art, the art of psychopaths, of primitive people are the liveliest ones, the most expressive ones, coming to us from organic depths, without cultivated beauty."^[210] He ridiculed, like Ion Vinea before him, the substance of Romania's academic traditionalism, notably in a provocative drawing which showed a grazing donkey under the title "Tradition".^[211] Instead, Janco was publicizing the idea that Dada and various other strands of modernism were the actual tradition, for being indirectly indebted to theabsurdist nature ofRomanian folklore.^[212] The matter of Janco's own debt to his country's peasant art is more controversial. In the 1920s, Vinea discussed Janco's Cubism is a direct echo of an old abstract art that is supposedly native and exclusive to Romania—an assumption considered exaggerated byPaul Cernat.^[213] Seiwert suggests that virtually none of Janco's paintings show a verifiable contact with Romanian primitivism, but his opinion is questioned by Sandqvist: he writes that Janco's masks and prints are homages to traditional Romanian decorative patterns.^[214]

For a while, Janco rediscovered himself in abstract and semi-abstract art, describing the basic geometrical shapes as pure forms, and art as the effort to organize these forms—ideas akin with the "picto-poetry" of Romanian avant-garde writers such asIlarie Voronca.^[215] After 1930, when Constructivism lost its position of leadership on Romania's artistic scene,^[83][216] Janco made a return to "analytic" Cubism, echoing the early work of Picasso in his paintingPeasant Woman and Eggs.^[186] This period centered on semi-figurative cityscapes, which, according to critics such as Alexandru D. Broșteanu^[76] andSorin Alexandrescu,^[217] stand out for their objectification of the human figure. Also then, Janco worked on seascape and still life canvasses, in brown tones and Cubist arrangements.^[174] Diversification touched his other activities. His theory of set design still mixed Expressionism into Futurism and Constructivism, calling for an actor-based Expressionist theater and a mechanized, movement-based, cinema.^[218] However, his parallel work incostume design evidenced a toning down of avant-garde tendencies (to the displeasure of his colleagues atIntegral magazine), and a growing preoccupation withcommedia dell'arte.^[219]

In discussing architecture, Janco described himself and the otherArtistes Radicaux as the mentors of Europe's modernist urban planners, includingBruno Taut and theBauhaus group.^[220] The ideals ofcollectivism in art, "art as life", and a "Constructivist revolution" dominated his programmatic texts of the mid-1920s, which offered as examples the activism ofDe Stijl,Blok andSovietConstructivist architecture.^[221] His own architectural work was entirely dedicated to functionalism: in his words, the purpose of architecture was a "harmony of forms", with designs as simplified as to resemble crystals.^[222] His experiment on Trinității Street, with its angular pattern and multicolored facade, has been rated one of the most spectacular samples of Romanian modernism,^[71] while the buildings he designed later came withArt Deco elements, including the "ocean liner"-type balconies.^[181] At the other end, hisPredeal sanatorium was described by Sandqvist as "a long, narrow white building clearly signaling its function as a hospital" and "smoothly adapting to the landscape."^[109] Functionalism was further illustrated by Janco's ideas on furniture design, where he favored "small heights", "simple aesthetics", as well as "a maximum of comfort"^[223] which would "pay no tribute to richness".^[71]

Scholars have also noted that "the breath ofhumanitarianism" unites the work of Janco, Maxy and Corneliu Michăilescu, beyond their shared eclecticism.^[224] Cernat nevertheless suggests that theContimporanul group was politically disengaged and making efforts to separate art from politics, giving positive coverage to bothMarxism andItalian fascism.^[225] In that context, a more evidently Marxist form of Constructivism, close toProletkult, was being taken up independently by Maxy.^[83] Janco's functionalist goal was still coupled with socialist imagery, as inCătre o arhitectură a Bucureștilor, called an architecturaltikkun olam by Sandqvist.^[75] Indebted toLe Corbusier'sNew Architecture,^[226] Janco theorized that Bucharest had the "luck" of not yet being systematized or built-up, and that it could be easily turned into agarden city, without ever repeating the West's "chain of mistakes".^[71] According to architecture historians Mihaela Criticos and Ana Maria Zahariade, Janco's creed was not in fact radically different from mainstream Romanian opinions: "although declaring themselves committed to the modernist agenda, [Janco and others] nuance it with their own formulas, away from the abstract utopias of theInternational Style."^[227] A similar point is made by Sorin Alexandrescu, who attested a "general contradiction" in Janco's architecture, that between Janco's own wishes and those of his patrons.^[217]

Soon after his first visit to Palestine and his Zionist conversion, Janco began painting landscapes in optimistic tones, including a general view overTiberias^[174] and bucolicwatercolors.^[176] By the time of World War II, however, he was again an Expressionist, fascinated with the major existential themes. The war experience inspired his 1945 paintingFascist Genocide, which is also seen by Grigorescu as one of his contributions to Expressionism.^[228] Janco's sketches of theBucharest Pogrom are, according to cultural historianDavid G. Roskies, "extraordinary" and in complete break with Janco's "earlier surrealistic style"; he paraphrases the rationale for this change as: "Why bother with surrealism when the world itself has gone crazy?"^[159] According to the painter's own definition: "I was drawing with the thirst of one who is being chased around, desperate to quench it and find his refuge."^[6] As he recalled, these works were not well received in the post-warZionist community, because they evoked painful memories in a general mood of optimism; as a result, Janco decided to change his palette and tackle subjects which related exclusively to his new country.^[229] An exception to this self-imposed rule was the motif of "wounded soldiers", which continued to preoccupy him after 1948, and was also thematically linked to the wartime massacres.^[230]

During and after hisOfakim Hadashim engagement, Marcel Janco again moved into the realm of pure abstraction, which he believed represented the artistic "language" of a new age.^[231] This was an older idea, as first illustrated by his 1925 attempt to create an "alphabet of shapes", the basis for any abstractionist composition.^[83] His subsequent preoccupations were linked to the Jewish tradition of interpreting symbols, and he reportedly told scholarMoshe Idel: "I paint inKabbalah".^[232] He was still eclectic beyond abstractionism, and made frequent returns to brightly colored, semi-figurative, landscapes.^[174] Also eclectic is Janco's sparse contribution to thearchitecture of Israel, including aHerzliya Pituah villa that is entirely built in the non-modernistPoble Espanyol style.^[166] Another component of Janco's work was his revisiting of earlier Dada experiments: he redid some of his Dada masks,^[174] and supported the international avant-garde groupNO!art.^[233] He later worked on theImaginary Animals cycle of paintings, inspired by the short stories ofUrmuz.^[174][215]

Meanwhile, his Ein Hod project was in various ways the culmination of his promotion of folk art, and, in Janco's own definition, "my last Dada activity".^[204] According to some interpretations, he may have been directly following the example of Hans Arp's "Waggis" commune, which existed in 1920s Switzerland.^[55][154] Anthropologist Susan Slyomovics argues that the Ein Hod project as a whole was an alternative to the standard practice of Zionist colonization, since, instead of creating new buildings in the ancient scenery, it showed attempts to cultivate the existing Arab-style masonry.^[234] She also writes that Janco's landscapes of the place "romanticize" his own contact with the Palestinians, and that they fail to clarify whether he thought of Arabs as refugees or as fellow inhabitants.^[235] Journalist Esther Zanberg describes Janco as an "Orientalist" driven by "the mythology surrounding Israeli nationalistic Zionism."^[166] Art historian Nissim Gal also concludes: "the pastoral vision of Janco [does not] include any trace of the inhabitants of the former Arab village".^[173]

Admired by his contemporaries on the avant-garde scene, Marcel Janco is mentioned or portrayed in several works by Romanian authors. In the 1910s, Vinea dedicated him the poem "Tuzla", which is one of his first contributions to modernist literature;^[236] a decade later, one of the Janco exhibits inspired him to write theprose poemDanțul pe frânghie ("Dancing on a Wire").^[237] Following his conflict with the painter, Tzara struck out all similar dedications from his own poems.^[55] Before their friendship waned,Ion Barbu also contributed a homage to Janco, referring to his Constructivist paintings as "storms ofprotractors".^[124] In addition, Janco was dedicated a poem byBelgian artist Émile Malespine, and is mentioned in one of Marinetti's poetic texts about the 1930 visit to Romania,^[238] as well as in the verse ofneo-DadaistValery Oisteanu.^[239] Janco's portrait was painted by colleagueVictor Brauner, in 1924.^[124]

According to Sandqvist, there are three competing aspects in Janco's legacy, which relate to the complexity of his profile: "In Western cultural history Marcel Janco is best known as one of the founding members of Dada in Zürich in 1916. Regarding the Romanian avant-garde in the interwar period Marcel Hermann Iancu is more known as the spider in the web and as the designer of a great number of Romania's first constructivist buildings [...]. On the other hand, in Israel Marcel Janco is best known as the 'father' of the artists' colony of Ein Hod [...] and for his pedagogic achievements in the young Jewish state."^[240] Janco's memory is principally maintained by his Ein Hod museum. The building was damaged by the2010 Mount Carmel forest fire, but reopened and grew to include a permanent exhibit of Janco's art.^[174] Janco's paintings still have a measurable impact on the contemporary Israeli avant-garde, which is largely divided between the abstractionism he helped introduce and theneorealistic disciples ofMichail Grobman andAvraham Ofek.^[241]

TheRomanian communist regime, which cracked down on modernism, reconfirmed the confiscation of villas built by theBirou de Studii Moderne, which it then leased to other families.^[71][134] One of these lodgings, the Wexler Villa, was assigned as the residence of communist poetEugen Jebeleanu.^[134][242] The regime tended to ignore Janco's contributions, which were not listed in the architectural who's who,^[243] and it became standard practice to generally omit references to his Jewish ethnicity.^[6] He was however honored with a special issue ofSecolul 20 literary magazine, in 1979,^[154] and interviewed forTribuna andLuceafărul journals (1981, 1984).^[244] His architectural legacy was affected by thelarge-scale demolition program of the 1980s. Most of the buildings were spared, however, because they are scattered throughout residential Bucharest.^[181] Some 20 of his Bucharest structures were still standing twenty years later,^[243] but the lack of a renovation program and the shortages of late communism brought steady decay.^{[71][166][181][243]}

After theRomanian Revolution of 1989, Marcel Janco's buildings were subject to legal battles, as the original owners and their descendants were allowed to contest the nationalization.^[71] These landmarks, like other modernist assets, became treasured real estate: in 1996, a Janco house was valued at 500,000United States dollars.^[181] The sale of such property happened at a fast pace, reportedly surpassing the standardized conservation effort, and experts noted with alarm that Janco villas were being defaced with anachronistic additions, such asinsulated glazing^[243][245] and structural interventions,^[134] or eclipsed by the newer highrise.^[246] In 2008, despite calls from within the academic community, only three of his buildings had been inscribed in theNational Register of Historic Monuments.^[243]

Janco was again being referenced as a possible model for new generations of Romanian architects and urban planners. In a 2011 article, poet and architect August Ioan claimed: "Romanian architecture is, apart from its few years with Marcel Janco, one that has denied itself experimentation, projective thinking, anticipation. [...] it is content with imports, copies, nuances or pure and simple stagnation."^[247] This stance is contrasted by that of designer Radu Comșa, who argues that praise for Janco often lacks "the recoil of objectivity".^[163] Janco's programmatic texts on the issue were collected and reviewed by historianAndrei Pippidi in the 2003 retrospective anthologyBucurești – Istorie și urbanism ("Bucharest. History and Urban Planning").^[248] Following a proposal formulated by poet and publicist Nicolae Tzone at the Bucharest Conference on Surrealism, in 2001,^[249] Janco's sketch for Vinea's "country workshop" was used in designing Bucharest's ICARE, the Institute for the Study of the Romanian and European Avant-garde.^[250] The Bazaltin building was used as the offices ofTVR Cultural station.^[243]

In the realm of visual arts, curators Anca Bocăneț and Dana Herbay organized a centennial Marcel Janco exhibit at theBucharest Museum of Art (MNAR),^[251] with additional contributions from writerMagda Cârneci.^[181] In 2000, his work was featured in the "Jewish Art of Romania" retrospective, hosted byCotroceni Palace.^[252] The local art market rediscovered Janco's art, and, in June 2009, one of his seascapes sold in auction for 130,000Euro, the second largest sum ever fetched by a painting in Romania.^[253] There was a noted increase in his overall market value,^[254] and he became interesting toart forgers.^[255]

Outside Romania, Janco's work has been reviewed in specialized monographs by Harry Seiwert (1993)^[256] and Michael Ilk (2001).^[124][257] His work as painter and sculptor has been dedicated special exhibits inBerlin,^[124]Essen (Museum Folkwang) andBudapest,^[257] while his architecture was presented abroad with exhibitions at theTechnical University Munich andBauhaus Center Tel Aviv.^[166] Among the events showcasing Janco's art, some focused exclusively on his rediscovered Holocaust paintings and drawings. These shows includeOn the Edge (Yad Vashem, 1990)^[6] andDestine la răscruce ("Destinies at Crossroads", MNAR, 2011).^[258] His canvasses and collages went on sale atBonhams^[176] andSotheby's.^[194]

• Visual arts in Israel
• Portrait of a Girl

• Paul Cernat,Avangarda românească și complexul periferiei: primul val,Cartea Românească, Bucharest, 2007.ISBN 978-973-23-1911-6
• Ovid Crohmălniceanu,Literatura română între cele două războaie mondiale, Vol. I,Editura Minerva, Bucharest, 1972.OCLC 490001217
• Vasile Drăguț, Vasile Florea, Dan Grigorescu, Marin Mihalache,Pictura românească în imagini, Editura Meridiane, Bucharest, 1970.OCLC 5717220
• Dan Grigorescu,Istoria unei generații pierdute: expresioniștii, Editura Eminescu, Bucharest, 1980.OCLC 7463753
• Susan Valeria Harris Smith,Masks in Modern Drama,University of California Press, Berkeley etc., 1984.ISBN 0-520-05095-9
• Dalia Manor, "From Rejection to Recognition: Israeli Art and the Holocaust", in Dan Urian,Efraim Karsh (eds.),In Search of Identity: Jewish Aspects in Israeli Culture, Frank Cass, London & Portland, 1999, p. 253-277.ISBN 0-7146-4440-4
• Barbara Meazzi, "Les marges du Futurisme", in François Livi (ed.),Futurisme et Surréalisme, L'Âge d'Homme, Lausanne, 2008, p. 111-124.ISBN 978-2-8251-3644-7
• Z. Ornea,Anii treizeci. Extrema dreaptă românească,Editura Fundației Culturale Române, Bucharest, 1995.ISBN 973-9155-43-X
• (in Romanian) Ion Pop," Un 'misionar al artei noi': Marcel Iancu (I)", inTribuna, Nr. 177, January 2010, p. 9-10;" Un 'misionar al artei noi': Marcel Iancu (II)", inTribuna, Nr. 178, February 2010, p. 10-11
• Marie-Aline Prat,Peinture et avant-garde au seuil des années 30, L'Âge d'Homme, Lausanne, 1984.OCLC 13759997
• David G. Roskies,Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture,Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, 1999.ISBN 0-8156-0615-X
• Tom Sandqvist,Dada East. The Romanians of Cabaret Voltaire,MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts & London, 2006.ISBN 0-262-19507-0
• Susan Slyomovics,
  • "Discourses on the pre-1948 Palestinian Village: The Case of Ein Hod/Ein Houd", in Annelies Moors, Toine van Teeffelen, Sharif Kanaana, Ilham Abu Ghazaleh (eds.),Discourse and Palestine: Power, Text and Context, Het Spinhuis, Amsterdam, 1995, p. 41-54.ISBN 90-5589-010-3
  • "The New Ein Houd", in Esther Hertzog, Orit Abuhav, Harvey E. Goldberg,Emanuel Marx (eds.),Perspectives on Israeli Anthropology,Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 2010, p. 413-452.ISBN 978-0-8143-3050-0
• Richard C. S. Trahair,Utopias and Utopians: An Historical Dictionary,Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, 1999.ISBN 0-313-29465-8
• Hubert F. van der Berg, "From a New Art to a New Life and a New Man. Avant-garde Utopianism in Dada", in Sascha Bru, Gunther Martens (eds.),The Invention of Politics in the European Avant-garde (1906-1940),Rodopi Publishers, Amsterdam & New York City, 2006, p. 133-150.ISBN 90-420-1909-3

• Marcel Janco collection at the Israel Museum. Retrieved 1 February 2012.
• "Marcel Janco".Information Center for Israeli Art. Israel Museum. Retrieved18 September 2016.
• Art of Marcel Janco atEuropeana. Retrieved 1 February 2012
• Janco's works at theMuseum of Modern Art
• Janco's profile by Petre Răileanu, inPlural Magazine, Nr. 3/1999
• Works by Marcel Janco,University of IowaInternational Dada Archive
• Ein Hod Artists' Village andJanco-Dada Museum, official sites
• Contimporanul archive,Babeș-Bolyai UniversityTranssylvanica Online Library