Ossip Zadkine - Figurine

Circa 1944

Height: 78.5 cm

Macassar ebony sculpture

More about this wood sculpture

Ossip Zadkine - Figurine sculpture of 1944 is a unique and striking example of Ossip Zadkine’s mastery of carving, demonstrating the sculptor’s ability at infusing this inanimate material with a potent sense of expression. Renowned for his practice of direct carving, Zadkine had an inherent understanding and appreciation of the innate qualities and features of various media, including stone, wood and marble. In the present work, he has harnessed the natural features of ebony to accentuate the soft forms, outlines, and undulating curves of the female figure. Blending a cubist idiom with the classical motif of a standing nude woman, Figurine encapsulates the principle characteristics of Zadkine’s oeuvre.

Figurine was formerly in the collection of John and Ruth Stephan, whom Zadkine had met during his time in New York. Writer, poet, editor, and translator, Ruth Stephan was the daughter of Charles Walgreen, the founder of the eponymous American pharmacy. Together with her husband, John, an artist, in 1947 she founded the influential arts magazine, the Tiger’s Eye, which served as an essential forum for contemporary art and writing, with a particular focus on Abstract Expressionism.