Sculptures for Architecture
During the last two years of his life, Zadkine produced a collection of sculptures for architecture which he exhibited shortly before his death at the Lucie Weill Gallery in Paris.
Ossip Zadkine
1967
Valentine Prax Bequest, 1981 , Plaster
Sculpture for Architecture or Leaning Tower, 53 x 23 x 17 cm
Sculpture for Architecture, 61 x 19 x 18 cm
The sculptor was heading in a new direction, the human figure being replaced with networks of arabesques and interlacings. Zadkine had designed these two sculptures to be enlarged to more than 6 metres in height and positioned on the facades of new buildings in order to humanise them. With the aid of photomontages, he could visualise the addition of his works to the buildings. But none of these compositions saw the light of day. These two plasters in the form of towers differ from previous compositions in that they themselves represent buildings and were designed by Zadkine as imaginary "residences", featuring staircases and apertures opening on multiple perspectives.