LIPCHITZ, JACQUES (French, 1891-1973)

Lipchitz was born in Lithuania and at age of eighteen he moved to Paris, where he attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian and soon met Picasso, Gris and Braque. In 1912 he began exhibiting at the Salon National des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d’Automne. Lipchitz’s first one-man show was held at Léonce Rosenberg’s Galerie L’Effort Moderne in Paris in 1920. Two years later he executed five bas-reliefs for The Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. He received a commission from the Vicomte Charles de Noailles in 1927 for the sculpture Joy of Life.

Lipchitz’s first important retrospective was held at Jeanne Bucher’s Galerie de la Renaissance in Paris in 1930. The Brummer Gallery in New York hosted his first large show in the United States in 1935. In 1941 Lipchitz left Paris for New York, where he began exhibiting regularly at the Buchholz Gallery (later the Curt Valentin Gallery).
In 1958 Lipchitz collaborated with the architect Philip Johnson on the Roofless Church in New Harmony, Indiana. The same year he became a United States citizen.
His series of small bronzes To the Limit of the Possible was shown at Fine Arts Associates in New York in 1959. Lipchitz showed regularly at the Marlborough-Gerson Gallery in New York between 1964 and 1966.
From 1970 until 1973 he worked on large-scale commissions for the Municipal Plaza in Philadelphia, Columbia University in New York and the Hadassah Medici Center, Jerusalem. These projects were completed after Lipchitz’s death by his wife Yulla.

Public collections include:
Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam