Museums in Paris: Musée Zadkine (Part 1 of 2)

We recently visited another Parisian atelier-musée, an artist's home and studio that has been converted to a museum featuring the artist's work.  

Musée Zadkine was once the home and workshop of Russian-born, French sculptor Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967).  The museum was opened in 1982 shortly after the death of his widow Valentine Prax.  

From Zadkine.com:  "Ossip Zadkine was a relentless, unclassifiable and prolific artist. We can today count more than 612 sculptures and a large number of works on paper, 765 gouaches and drawings as well as 200 lithographs and etchings. The exhibition of his works in his Parisian studio of the rue Rousselet on May 20th 1920, marks the beginning of a long series of shows, including more than 105 solo exhibitions during his lifetime, in Europe but also in the United States and in Japan.

Zadkine lived in Belarus (in Vitebsk, his birthplace), in England (Sunderland and London), in France (Paris, Bruniquel, Les Arques), during the First World War he enlisted voluntarily and was posted to the Russian ambulance corps in Champagne in 1916 and during the Second World War he fled to New York (October 1941 – September 1945). He also travelled to many places: Belgium, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Japan, America, amongst others. Zadkine collaborated with many people on diverse occasions, with architects (Adrien Blomme, Joseph André, Hugh Maaskant), decorators (Marc du Plantier, André Groult), poets (Claude Aveline, Robert Ganzo, Pierre Béarn …) and was close to important individuals, artists (Marc Chagall, Henry Moore, Tsuguharu Foujita, Amedeo Modigliani …), thinkers, founders, collectors and doctors, industrialists, businessmen… worldwide. He gathered together his memoirs in “Le Maillet et le Ciseau” which he started writing in 1962."

Ossip Zadkine with his ever-present pipe and bushy hair.

When we visited, Musée Zadkine was hosting a temporary exhibition:  "The Dreamer of the Forest".

The exhibition features Zadkine's work, some of which relates to themes and materials of the forest.  The exhibition also includes many works by other artists, including Giacometti and DuBuffet.  According to Zadkine.Paris.fr, the "exhibition questions the fascination made of fear and enchantment mixed up by the forest in the common imagination."  The temporary exhibition started in the artist's former house and continued in the studio.  Below are some works from the exhibition.

Below is a closeup of the head of the figure pictured above.  Jean-Claude especially liked this sculpture because of its Cubist elements and similarity to Picasso's works.  We learned that Picasso and Zadkine were well-acquainted.

In the studio, we saw where Zadkine worked.  The studio was a large space with windows on two walls to take advantage of morning and afternoon light.  

Jean-Claude especially liked the wood carving of Prometheus below.  Zadkine's father was a classics teacher.  Many of Zadkine's works are based on figures from Greek mythology.

Next Up:  Visiting the garden