Ossip Zadkine

Sculptor. Born as Yossel Tsadkin in the family of Yefim Tsadkin in Smolensk (1890). Studied at a school of crafts in Vitebsk and took lessons from Yehuda Pen (1900–04). Studied at school of art in England (from 1905), worked in a carpentry workshop in London and studied fretwork at the School of Arts and Crafts (1909). Moved to Paris (1909). Studied at the École nationale des beaux-arts and the Académie Marie Vassilieff. Rented a studio at La Ruche (1910), mixed with artists and poets. Worked in a studio at 35 Rue Rousselet in Paris (1913–28). Volunteered for service in the French Army (1915–17), gassed on the Western Front (1917). Returned to Paris and drew a series of works on the war (1918). Combined the principles of Cubism with the traditions of Archaic art. Experimented with planes, combined different materials and employed paint and graphic drawings on the surfaces of his sculptures. Particularly popular in Holland and Belgium. Lived in the United States (1941–45). Returned to Paris and designed To a Destroyed City at the entry to the port of Rotterdam (1953). Took up etching and lithography and wrote poetry and memoirs (1950s–60s). Awarded the Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale (1950), French National Art Prize (1960) and the Légion d’honneur (1967). Died in Paris (1967), where the artist’s studio on Rue d’Assas is now a memorial museum. Contributed to exhibitions (from 1911). Contributed to the Salon des Indépendants (1911), Salon d’Automne (1911), First Exhibition of the Artistic Association in St Petersburg (1912), Neue Sezession in Berlin (1914), Artists in Exile in New York (1942) and one-man shows in Paris (1920), London (1928), Venice (1932, 1938), Chicago (1930, 1933, 1936), Philadelphia (1931) and New York (1927) and a twenty-five-year retrospective in Brussels (1933).