Jacques Lipchitz
After first studying engineering to comply with his father’s wishes, Lipchitz moved to Paris in 1909 to study art. His studio in Montparnasse was next to that of Brancusi: he soon met Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris, Diego Rivera, Amedeo Modigliani (who painted his portrait with his wife Berthe) and Chaim Soutine. Lipchitz’s exposure to cubism remained a primary influence on his sculpture, in which he similarly fragments and recombines forms. He came to the United States to escape the advancing German army in 1941, with little more that a few drawings. He returned permanently to Europe in 1963.
Mythic, classical and biblical subjects with universal themes attracted Lipchitz. They provided, for him, metaphors for current politics and struggles—particularly in his works of the 1930s and 1940s, when the horrors of Nazism threatened Jews. For example, Lipchitz used the subject of Prometheus to attack Nazism: Prometheus symbolized democracy for the artist. Lipchitz’s The Dance, 1936, in SMoCA’s collection, is on view in the lobby of the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, adjacent to the Museum.
The Couple, 1947, is one of many renditions of a favorite theme, seen in both drawings and sculptures and sometimes titled The Cry (The Couple). Entwined in a muscular embrace that is also a struggle, the man and woman share a leg—and seemingly the double-edged fate of love. A larger version of The Couple was removed unceremoniously by the city officials of Amsterdam in 1956, who thought it too explicit when it was included in an exhibition of modern sculpture in a city park. In response, Lipchitz explained the roots and metaphors of this subject for him:
That summer [1928] I had lost my father and, three weeks later, my sister. I was desperate. But then my optimistic nature came out: I saw that life must go on. From this came the statue. Life must go on—that’s what the statue expresses. It is lovers, which means affirmation, but it also looks like an animal in pain. This is because life is a tragic scene and a hopeful scene both at once. So now some people say the sculpture is obscene? That’s very interesting. I don’t understand people. Nothing more pure ever came out of myself than this work.
Mythic, classical and biblical subjects with universal themes attracted Lipchitz. They provided, for him, metaphors for current politics and struggles—particularly in his works of the 1930s and 1940s, when the horrors of Nazism threatened Jews. For example, Lipchitz used the subject of Prometheus to attack Nazism: Prometheus symbolized democracy for the artist. Lipchitz’s The Dance, 1936, in SMoCA’s collection, is on view in the lobby of the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts, adjacent to the Museum.
The Couple, 1947, is one of many renditions of a favorite theme, seen in both drawings and sculptures and sometimes titled The Cry (The Couple). Entwined in a muscular embrace that is also a struggle, the man and woman share a leg—and seemingly the double-edged fate of love. A larger version of The Couple was removed unceremoniously by the city officials of Amsterdam in 1956, who thought it too explicit when it was included in an exhibition of modern sculpture in a city park. In response, Lipchitz explained the roots and metaphors of this subject for him:
That summer [1928] I had lost my father and, three weeks later, my sister. I was desperate. But then my optimistic nature came out: I saw that life must go on. From this came the statue. Life must go on—that’s what the statue expresses. It is lovers, which means affirmation, but it also looks like an animal in pain. This is because life is a tragic scene and a hopeful scene both at once. So now some people say the sculpture is obscene? That’s very interesting. I don’t understand people. Nothing more pure ever came out of myself than this work.
(Lithuania, 1891 – 1973)
View objects by this artist.