Ossip Zadkine

The Russian-French sculptor Ossip Zadkine studied at the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London from 1908 onwards and subsequently went to Paris where he befriended the artists of the avant-garde. He participated in various exhibitions, at the Salon des Indépendants and at the Salon d’Automne, amongst others. In 1919, first solo exhibitions followed. Besides Archipenko and other artist colleagues, Zadkine also transferred the principles of cubism to sculpture in which he combined its formal austerity with expressive freedom of composition. At the same time, he was excited by primitive and archaic sculpture which he had already experienced during his time in London at the British Museum and again during his travels to Greece in the 1930s. The breaking up of shapes into contrasting areas of open and closed elements, gradually changing over from angular to curved shapes, became typical of Zadkines sculptural works which were mostly executed in wood or stone. The anti-fascist bronze monument “The Destroyed City” (1946-1953) in Rotterdam, one of the artist’s best-known works, was an outstanding example of the late works in this regard. Following the Second World War, which he mostly spent in America, Zadkine was able to follow up on early successes in Europe; among other awards, he received the Grand Prix de Sculpture at the Biennale in Venice in 1950. He also worked as a teacher, first of all at the Académie de la Grand Chaumière and later at the École des Beaux-Arts.