"Ossip Zadkine Bronze Harlequin 1943"
Ossip ZADKINE "The Howling Harlequin"
Important Bronze with medal patina and slight green tints.
Height 95 cm, width 46 cm, base 35 cm x 31.5 cm.
Signed on the base left " O. ZADKINE " numbered " 4/6 " and dated " 43 ". Signed on the back " O. ZADKINE ".
Founder's mark: " MODERN ART FOUNDRY -NEW YORK- N.Y. "
Copy n° 4 of an edition of 6.
Date 1943
Very Fine Condition
Provenance: Collection of the gallery owner Christophe Czwiklitzer.
A copy similar to that in the Museum Zadkine in Paris (inventory n° MZS 134).
References: Ionel Janiou "Zadkine", éd. Bellanger Rouen 1964, reproduced full page. Janiou, "Zadkine", Arted Paris, 1979, n°25. "In the Geijustu-Shinscho", Tokyo, 04.54. G.l. Marchal, "Ossip Zadkine, la Sculpture...toute une vie", éd. du Rouergue 1992, page 95. S. Lecombre, "Ossip Zadkine, l'Oeuvre sculptée", Paris Musées, Editions Paris, 1994, n°364, reproduced on page 397.
Ossip ZADKINE (1888-1967)
A French sculptor of Belarusian origin considered one of the greatest masters of Cubist sculpture. He produced more than four hundred sculpted works, thousands of drawings, watercolors, gouaches, engravings, as well as book illustrations and tapestries. His work, primarily sculptural, can be seen in the two museums dedicated to him, the first in Paris at his workshop at 100 bis Rue d'Assas and the second in Arques (Lot), at his secondary residence.
He arrived in France in 1909, studied at the Fine Arts in Paris, worked in the studio of the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle, and mingled with Picasso, Brancusi, Lipchitz, Delaunay, Matisse, Modigliani...
Mobilized during World War I in the Foreign Legion, he emerged physically and morally destroyed.
He married the painter Valentine Prax in 1920, who bequeathed the workshop and the works of Ossip Zadkine to the state in 1982 for the creation of the museum in Paris.
In 1941, to avoid deportation, he took refuge in New York where he joined his Jewish artist friends from the School of Paris. It was in 1943, during this exile, that he created "The Howling Harlequin" .
The Harlequin, a solar character destined for amusement, joy, and human celebration can no longer play this role.
He suffers, he howls his distress in the face of the atrocities of this war.
This Harlequin is none other than Ossip Zadkine who expresses and materializes in this work his pain and suffering in front of these atrocities, especially since he has just learned about the existence of extermination camps.
Numerous exhibitions in France and abroad: Paris, Musée Rodin, Musée d'Art Moderne, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Brussels, Venice, London, Leicester, Mons, Otawa, Osaka, Turin, Knokke le Zoutte, Frankfurt, Tokyo, .....
Museums: France, Auvers s/ Oise (Van Gogh), Bordeaux, Caylus, les Arques, Lyon. Abroad: Geneva, Charleroi, Quebec,...
Public works in Paris: Quai d'Orsay (the messenger), 250 rue des Pyrénées (post office), Luxembourg's Garden (Paul Eluard), place St. Germain des Près (Prométhée), bd. Edouard Quinet (the birth of shapes).
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