Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967)
Le Retour du fils prodigue
Ossip Zadkine was born to a Jewish father and
a mother of Scottish origin in the Belarusian town of Vitebsk.
There he received his first drawing lessons from Yehuda Penn, who
also counted Marc Chagall among his pupils. From 1905 to 1909,
Zadkine lived in England, where he was trained as a furniture maker
and concentrated on wood carving. In 1909 he emigrated to Paris. In
his early years there, he moved from address to address in
Montparnasse and stayed at La Ruche for a time. His classes at the
École des Beaux Arts were not dynamic enough for his taste, and he
soon decided to move on. Only Rodin's work won a degree of
admiration from Zadkine. At the Louvre, he saw Egyptian sculptures
for the first time, and was profoundly inspired by them. His
encounters with Cubism, Picasso, the Delaunays, Constantin
Brancusi, and Jacques Lipchitz also influenced his artistic
development. Between 1911 and 1914, Zadkine took part in a number
of Salons in Paris, and from 1913 onwards he also exhibited in
London, Berlin, and Amsterdam. He used the direct carving
technique, and his lyrical works were characterized by verticals,
curves, and long, slender stylized hands. He met Modigliani in
1915, and the two men became lasting friends.
In 1920, Zadkine held his first solo exhibition of sculptures,
drawings, and gouaches at his studio in Paris. Over the years, his
work became increasingly monumental, and he had more and larger
sculptures cast in bronze. Despite his success in other countries,
such as Belgium and the Netherlands, Zadkine remained poor and had
to give lessons to earn money. He proved to be a gifted teacher,
and countless sculptors spent time at his studio.
In 1940, he fled to America for fear of Nazi persecution, and in
1943 he produced his first sculpture on a war-related
theme, La Prisonnière. After returning from America
in 1946, Ossip Zadkine worked at his Paris studio in Rue d'Assas
until his death in 1967. It is now the Musée Zadkine.
In the Netherlands, Zadkine is best known for the sculpture La
Ville détruite (Demolished City), unveiled in
Rotterdam in 1953. Le Retour du fils prodigue (Return of
the Prodigal Son) dates from the same period and displays the same
abstract figurative style. This sculpture was modelled in 1950, and
in 1954 five numbered bronzes were cast at Susse Fondeur in Paris,
along with three artist's proofs.
