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| Ossip Zadkine | |
|---|---|
| Name | Ossip Zadkine |
| Birth date | 15 July 1888 |
| Birth place | Vitebsk, Russian Empire |
| Death date | 25 November 1967 |
| Death place | Paris, France |
| Nationality | Russian, French |
| Known for | Sculpture, woodcut, drawing |
| Movement | Cubism, Modernism |
Ossip Zadkine Ossip Zadkine was a Russian-born sculptor and artist active chiefly in Paris whose work bridged Cubism, Modernism, and Expressionist currents, influencing interwar and postwar sculpture. He worked in wood, stone, and bronze, producing figural and abstract pieces that engaged with themes drawn from Greek mythology, Biblical narratives, and contemporary events such as World War I and World War II. Zadkine maintained studios and exhibited across Europe and the United States, interacting with many leading artists, writers, and institutions of the twentieth century.
Born in Vitebsk in the Russian Empire, Zadkine grew up amid the multicultural milieu of Belarus and initially trained in classical and technical drawing linked to regional art schools. He moved to Paris in 1909, enrolling at ateliers associated with the École des Beaux-Arts milieu and taking classes that connected him to networks including the Académie Julian and ateliers frequented by émigré artists from Saint Petersburg and Moscow. In Paris he met figures from the Belle Époque and prewar avant-garde scenes, situating him near circles around Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, and expatriate communities from Russia and Belgium.
Zadkine’s early work absorbed formal innovations from Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque through engagement with Cubism, while also drawing on earlier sculptural precedents such as Auguste Rodin and Constantin Brâncuși. He was influenced by classical and archaic sources including Ancient Greece and Egypt, and by contemporaries in Paris like Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, and Fernand Léger. Literary and musical encounters with figures such as Sergei Diaghilev, Jean Cocteau, Blaise Cendrars, and Igor Stravinsky informed his thematic choices, while connections to émigré artists from Vilnius and Riga fed into his aesthetic synthesis. Exposure to public commissions and patrons linked him to institutions including the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Tuileries, and galleries run by dealers such as Kahnweiler.
Zadkine’s output can be divided into several phases: an early classical-realist period, a Cubist-period of fractured planes and synthetic forms, and a later expressive, monumental phase. Notable sculptures from his Cubist-inflected phase include works shown alongside creations by Jacques Lipchitz, Gaston Lachaise, and Constantin Brâncuși in Paris salons. His monumental pieces, produced between the 1920s and 1950s, were commissioned for public and private sites in France, Belgium, United Kingdom, and the United States, and were discussed in the pages of journals linked to editors like André Breton, Louis Aragon, and Paul Valéry. Key works such as his war memorials responded to events like World War I, while postwar works engaged with reconstruction debates connected to figures in Charles de Gaulle’s era and cultural initiatives of the French Fourth Republic. He also created graphic works and woodcuts that circulated with prints by Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, and Joan Miró in salons and exhibitions organized by curators from museums like the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and the Tate Gallery.
Zadkine taught and lectured in settings associated with Académie de la Grande Chaumière and contributed to collaborative projects with painters and architects such as Le Corbusier, André Lurçat, and Auguste Perret. He participated in international exhibitions including the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne and later postwar biennales where his work was shown alongside that of Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Isamu Noguchi, and Alexander Calder. Galleries such as those run by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Galerie Maeght, and Pelhám exhibited his work, while museums including the Musée Rodin, Museum of Modern Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and institutions in Amsterdam, Brussels, and Zurich acquired pieces. He collaborated with writers and poets, contributing to illustrated books with artists and editors like Gaston Gallimard and participating in salons frequented by Gertrude Stein and Ernest Hemingway.
Zadkine lived in Montparnasse and later in a studio-house in Paris where he hosted fellow artists and intellectuals such as Marc Chagall and Chaim Soutine. During World War II he faced the challenges common to many émigré artists, interacting with resistance circles and navigating occupation-era administrative pressures tied to agencies like the Vichy government and the German military administration. After the war he received commissions from municipal and national bodies in France and engaged with cultural reconstruction projects linked to the Ministry of Reconstruction. He continued producing work into the 1960s, living contemporaneously with figures such as Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, and Niki de Saint Phalle.
Zadkine’s reputation has been discussed by critics, historians, and curators at institutions including the Centre Pompidou, Musée National d'Art Moderne, Victoria and Albert Museum, and numerous university departments of art history. His work influenced sculptors and public-monument debates alongside contemporaries like Henri Laurens, Charles Despiau, and later artists such as Antony Gormley and Louise Bourgeois. Critical reception ranged from praise in reviews in Le Figaro and Le Monde to analysis in academic journals and monographs published by presses associated with Cambridge University Press, Yale University Press, and museums. Retrospectives and permanent displays in Paris—most notably a house-museum preserving his studio—ensure ongoing scholarship and public engagement, with holdings in collections from the National Gallery of Art to regional museums in Bretagne and Provence.
Category:20th-century sculptors Category:Russian emigrants to France