Zadkine museum is one of the rare sculptors’ studios – along with that of Antoine Bourdelle – which has been preserved in Paris, bearing witness to the Montparnasse of artists.
At the beginning of the 20th century, artists left Montmartre for Montparnasse, where they found cheaper studios: Modigliani, Soutine, Foujita, Chagall, Léger, Picasso and many others came to set up in the district, leading to the creation of the famous Paris School of which Zadkine is a representative.
The golden age of Montparnasse was characterised by artistic exuberance and cosmopolitanism. Artists, collectors and art dealers gathered in the district’s many cafés.
« Guillaume Apollinaire, the poet of the unexpected and the picturesque, used to say that Montparnasse was the centre of the world. Apollinaire was exaggerating perhaps, but for those who lived there, Montparnasse was certainly the capital of Paris », wrote Tristan Tzara.
Zadkine museum is dedicated to the memory and the work of Ossip Zadkine (1890-1967), a sculptor of Russian origin, who lived and worked in the house and its studios, between 1928 and 1967.
Zadkine joined the Cubist movement, working in a Cubist idiom from 1914 to 1925. He later developed his own style, one that was strongly influenced by African and Greek arts.
March 25, 2020
