ZADKINE, OSSIP (Russian-French, 1890-1967)

Zadkine belongs to the important group of Cubist sculptors who followed the original experiments of Picasso and Leger in flat painting, translating the analysis of space and volume into the three-dimensional objects.
Born in Smolensk, Zadkine was sent in 1906 by his father to Sunderland, Northern England to learn English, but instead he made his way to London in order to study sculpture. He soon returned to Smolensk, but was sent back to London to continue to study at the Polytechnic Institute. He came to Paris in 1909, where he studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, set up as a sculptor and made contacts with his contemporary artists of Montparnasse.
He went to a contact with the Cubist circle, and for his use of hollows and concave inflections that he is most known.
He worked in Paris throughout the 1920’s and 1930s, passing from Cubist compactness of form to his own more dramatic style, became interested in polychrome wood sculpture and investigated the intrinsic sculptural qualities of bronze.
He spent the Second World War in New York, returning to Paris in 1944, where he taught at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière.
In 1950 he obtained a prize for sculpture at the Venice Biennale.
A large retrospective exhibition was given at the Maison de la Pensée, Paris in 1958.

Public collections include:        
Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris
Musée Royaux des Beaux Arts, Brussels
Museum of Modern Art, Miami, Florida
Petit Palais, Geneva
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam