Jacques Lipchitz

Jacques Lipchitz - Studies in Paris; extensive involvement with Cubism

Jacques Lipchitz was born Chaim Jakob Lipchitz in Druskininkai on 22nd August 1891. The municipality, which today belongs to Lithuania, was part of the Russian Empire at the time and the artist was therefore a subject of the Tsar by birth. After attending and graduating from commercial school, his mother made it possible for her son to move to Paris, where Jacques Lipchitz changed his first name and studied at the Académie Julian and the National School of Fine Arts. During his stay in the French capital, the young man had the opportunity for fruitful encounters with recognised artists of his time, including Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris. Lipchitz was soon able to exhibit his early works, and from 1912 he was a regular participant at the Salon d'Automne. In 1915, he met Berthe Kitrosser, who would later become his first wife, and in 1924, he became a French citizen. The artist examined Cubism extensively in the 1910s and 1920s, whereby he showed clear influences from Pablo Picasso and his Mexican colleague Diego Rivera.

Organic, softly curved sculptures; emigration to the USA

Jacques Lipchitz held his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Léonce Rosenberg in Paris in 1920. While his first cubist sculptures were still in the tradition of his role models in the frontal view, he soon succeeded in taking the step towards a comprehensive utilisation of space, a design that did justice to all sides. In the process, his forms became increasingly independent, lost their calmness, sometimes exhibited striking zigzag lines, and finally approached the soft curves of baroque opulence characteristic of the artist. With these works, the artist also made the step to America, where he was able to exhibit at the Brummer Gallery in New York in 1935. His sculpture Prometheus, created for the Paris World Exhibition in 1937, earned Jacques Lipchitz a gold medal. When German troops occupied Paris and the collaborationist Vichy-regime pushed ahead with the persecution of the Jews, Lipchitz fled to New York with the help of the American journalist Varian Fry and his Emergency Rescue Committee. He shared this fate with other artists of Jewish origin, including the painters Max Ernst and Marc Chagall.

Artistic breakthrough in New York; international exhibitions

In New York, Jacques Lipchitz was quickly able to build on his earlier successes and was soon exhibiting regularly at the Buchholz Gallery, (later renamed the Curt Valentin Gallery). However, his wife Berthe longed for Paris and the marriage thus ended in divorce; Jacques Lipchitz became an American citizen and went on to marry his second wife, the sculptor Yulla Halberstadt, with whom he had his only child, their daughter Lolya Rachel. In 1948, Lipchitz collaborated with the architect Philip Johnson on the design of a church in New Harmony in the US state of Indiana. In the 1950s and 1960s, Lipchitz's career took a steep upward trajectory; he was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and took part in the Venice Biennale Venezia and Documenta in Kassel.

Jacques Lipchitz died on the island of Capri on 16th May 1973 and was laid to rest in Jerusalem.