Life and career
Born in Warsaw, Marcoussis developed his career in Paris and participated in Cubist circles. Still life and printmaking allowed him to explore multiple viewpoints and a compressed pictorial space. Later literary print projects extended these concerns into imagined settings, showing that Cubism could support narrative as well as objects on a table.
Works across a career
Selected examples, not a complete catalogue. Read date ranges and attributions before inferring a career sequence.
- 01
1920
1920
The Bar
- Material / technique
- aquatint, etching and drypoint
- Attribution / role
- Museum attribution
- Collection / source
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
- 02
c. 1923
c. 1923
Night Café
- Material / technique
- oil on canvas
- Attribution / role
- Museum attribution
- Collection / source
- The Cleveland Museum of Art
Museum catalogue note
Following Cubist principles, this painting depicts a table from multiple perspectives, providing different views of various objects simultaneously. Louis Casimir Ladislas Markus was born in Warsaw, Poland, into a Jewish family that had converted to Catholicism. In 1903, he moved to Paris where he met poet Guillaume Apollinaire and artists Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. He then began experimenting with Cubism. Also of Polish descent, Apollinaire had changed his own name and urged the artist to change his name to Marcoussis after a French village. The yellow hot air balloon and the French flag glimpsed out of the window pay homage to the artist’s adopted homeland.
Collection text · The Cleveland Museum of Art · CC0 - 03
1930
View this work at the source
Reference entry · image not reproduced1930
Stairway with Figure
- Material / technique
- Crayon and pencil on paper
- Attribution / role
- Museum attribution
- Collection / source
- The Museum of Modern Art
Compare materials, style and colour
The 1920 Bar combines several intaglio methods; the oil Night Café develops related spatial problems through colour; the 1930 Stairway uses crayon and pencil on paper. Compare printed tonal grain, painted planes and directly drawn lines. A later monochrome drawing does not mean the artist had rejected colour; it reflects a different material and project.
Material
What can this material do? Distinguish a design, an original object and a later impression or cast.
Style
Compare viewpoint, edges, composition and marks. Which choices persist, and which change?
Colour
Compare palette, contrast and light. Consider the support, printing, surface treatment and ageing.
Sources and further reading
Original educational interpretation; catalogue descriptions are separately credited. Each study links to its source. Reference entries without images are not added to the comparison timeline.