Ossip ZADKINE (1888-1967)
Mythological figure, the sculptor
Bronze with green patina
Designed in 1941, cast in 1968
Signed and numbered on the top of the base " O.Z. 3/6 ". Foundry stamp " ROMAN BRONZE WORKS INC. N.Y."
Height : 45 cm 45 cm ; Width : 21 cm ; Depth : 21,5 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Schmit, Paris 1970 (n° 52 of the exhibition "Zadkine 1890-1967" of April-May 1970)
- Private collection, Paris ; then by descent.
Bibliography :
- D. Chevalier, "Zadkine. Sculptures", Guy Le Prat, Paris, 1949, reproduced (not paginated, a similar copy)
- Paris, Galerie Schmit, April-May 1970, n° 52 (our copy)
- Mont-de-Marsan, Musée Despiau-Wlérick, July-August 1970, n° 37 (a similar copy)
- I. Jianou, " Zadkine ", Arted, Paris, 1979, n° 284 and 319 (dated 1943)
- C. Lichtenstern, "Ossip Zadkine, der Bilhauer und seine Ikonographie", Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin, 1980, n° 132, reproduced (a similar copy)
- Musee Zadkine, "Sculptures", Paris Musées, Paris, 1989
- Albi, Toulouse-Lautrec Museum, "Zadkine. Mythologie et Poésie", October-December 1992, n° 11, reproduced in the catalog (a similar copy)
- S. Lecombre, " Ossip Zadkine l'oeuvre sculpté ", Paris-Musées, Paris, 1994, n° 333, reproduced in black and white p. 372
Ossip Zadkine conceived "Mythological figure, the sculptor" in 1941, from New York where he had gone into exile during the war to escape the Nazi yoke.
This sculpture is part of the neoclassical aesthetic that has affected the artist since the early 1930s and which became definitive during his stay in the United States between 1941 and 1945. Particularly marked by a trip to Greece in 1931, his interest in Antiquity was manifested by a taste for mythological subjects and the introduction of formal elements drawn from Greek statuary. Not denying his Cubist influences, he mixed some of his stylistic traits, notably the play of concave and convex volumes.
Cubist, "Mythological figure, the sculptor" is particularly so at the level of the flattened face, which is reminiscent of an earlier work by the artist "Homo Sapiens" (1933-1935, Paris, National Museum of Modern Art). In the same way as for this sculpture in elm wood, Zadkine inlaid the face of his character in an Ionic capital. The artist thus places himself in the conception stemming from the Renaissance and the theories of Vitruvius, which associates the column with the human body.
Zadkine, a profoundly humanist sculptor, who always placed the human figure at the center of his work, presents here his bronze double. The work appears as a witness of his faith in man and in his creative power.
Expert : BRAME ET LORENCEAU
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