Lipchitz. A Cubist Sculptor

The exhibition presents the work of Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973), a Lithuanian-born sculptor who became famous in Paris and has been relatively little known in Hungary until now. In addition to Lipchitz’s early Cubist works, the exhibition includes sculptures, unique and multiplied prints, works from almost every important period of his oeuvre, and the sculptor’s professional and friendship network.

Lipchitz arrived in Paris in 1909, at the age of eighteen, and from 1911 he rented an atelier in Montparnasse, a favourite quarter among avantgarde artists. During his years in there, Lipchitz made extensive acquaintances and became lifelong friends with several contemporary artists, including Amedeo Modigliani and Diego Rivera. It was through Rivera he first met Pablo Picasso and other Cubist artists, who had an immense impact on his artistic outlook and development. Lipchitz realised early that Cubism, originally developed in painting, offered new potential for sculpture as well. In his figures of musicians, bathers and harlequins, he explored ways of creating an autonomous Cubist sculptural idiom.

In Lipchitz’s works from the 1930s, the forms more open and dynamic, the surface of his sculptures more expressive. The central problem in his works that returned to the traditional concept of the figure concerned the relationship between two figures interacting with each other and almost merging together in their movements. He tackled the motif of the “struggle” through mythological and biblical themes, which, from the 1930s, gained topical meaning as standpoints against Nazism and war.

Following the invasion of German troops, he fled initially to the South of France, before resettling on the other side of the Atlantic in summer 1941. In his first year in New York, he found a gallery and a foundry, and he began to work once more. In 1946, on his first post-war visit to Paris, the French president awarded him the Légion d’Honneur for his decades-long contribution to art.

Conception of the exhibition and the accompanying catalogue, curator of the exhibition: Judit Geskó and Anett Somodi
Assistant to the curator: Dominika Sodics

The exhibition can also be visited with a ticket for the permanent exhibitions.

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