Personal and professional papers of Jacques Lipchitz
1910–73
Jacques Lipchitz (22 August 1891-26 May 1973) was a French-American sculptor of the Cubist style. He was born to a Jewish family in Druskieniki, present day Lithuania, then a part of the Russian Empire. In 1909 he moved to Paris to study sculpture and, with some short gaps, stayed there until his emmigration to the USA in 1942. Lipchitz retained highly figurative and legible components in his work leading up to 1915-16, after which naturalist and descriptive elements were muted, and dominated by a synthetic style of Crystal Cubism. In 1920 Lipchitz held his first solo exhibition, at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie L'Effort Moderne in Paris. Fleeing the Nazis he moved to the USA in 1942 and settled in New York City and eventually to Hastings-on-Hudson.
These digitised materials include 280 pages of his three notebooks showing the artist in his early days in Paris (1915-25), during the hardships of the war and before his ability as a sculptor was widely recognised. There are also around 1000 items from Lipchitz's personal and business correspondence, reflecting his connections with European artists (Moishe Kisling, Le Corbusier, Karl Teige), and his personal life, evident in his letters to his wife Berthe, parents, siblings, and close friends. There are 150 documents related to two of Lipchitz's artistic and political projects before the Second World War, namely his participation in the Paris International Exhibition of 1937 and his trip to the USSR in 1935. Also included are 50 of his drawings and several examples of rare printed materials, such as early Cubist and Futurist journals and the publications of emigre Russsian communities in Paris. Finally there are more than 1000 photographs, mostly of maquettes of his statues, but also of his family and friends.
- Collection Owner
- Jacques Lipchitz 1891–1973
- Collection
- Tate Archive
- Acquisition
- Presented to Tate Archive by Rubin Lipchitz, March 1989; the cataloguing and selective digitisation of this archive collection was supported by Mr Timm Bergold, 2023
- Reference
- TGA 897
451 objects in this collection
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Personal and professional papers of Jacques Lipchitz
451 Objects
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Correspondence
212 Objects
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Correspondence to and from Jacques Lipchitz
183 Objects
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Correspondence between D. Aranovich and Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Letters from ‘Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Revolutionnaires’ to Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Letters from Pavel Barkhan to Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Correspondence between ‘The Barnes Foundation’ and Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence between Alfred and Margaret Barr and Jacques Lipchitz
4 Objects
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Correspondence between Jeanne Bucher and Jacques Lipchitz
30 Objects
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Correspondence between Albert Buesche and Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence between Andre de Fels and Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Correspondence between Charles and Marie-Laure de Noailles and Jacques Lipchitz
10 Objects
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Correspondence between Paul Dermee and Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Correspondence between journal ‘Documents’ and Jacques Lipchitz
4 Objects
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Correspondence between Pierre Dubaut and Jacques Lipchitz
40 Objects
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Correspondence between Varian M. Fry and Jacques Lipchitz
5 Objects
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Letters from Walter Gropius to Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Correspondence between Moise Kisling and Jacques Lipchitz
4 Objects
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Letters from Germaine Krull-Ivens to Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence between Juan and Marguerite Larrea and Jacques Lipchitz
10 Objects
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Correspondence from Le Corbusier to Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence from Berthe to Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence between Jacques and Dina and Fanya Lipchitz
4 Objects
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Correspondence between Jacques and Pavel Lipchitz
1 Object
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Letters from the Mánes Association of Fine Artists to Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Postcards from Oscar Miestchaninoff to Jacques Lipchitz
3 Objects
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Correspondence between Moulineaux-Billancourt Station and Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence between James M. Nahon and Jacques Lipchitz
4 Objects
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Correspondence between Edouard Pignon to Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Correspondence between Jacques Lipchitz and ‘Plans’ journal
1 Object
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Correspondence from P.A.Pocheron to Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence of Serge and Helene Refes with Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Letters from Walya Resnikoff to Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Letters from N. Sant’Andrea to Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence between Cesare Sofianopulo and Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Correspondence between Camille Soula and Jacques Lipchitz
1 Object
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Postcards from ‘Der Sturm’ to Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Letters from Charles Teige to Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence between Joaquin Torres-Garcia and Jacques Lipchitz
8 Objects
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Correspondence between Christian Zervos and Jacques Lipchitz
2 Objects
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Correspondence to and from Berthe Lipchitz (Kitrosser)
28 Objects
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Other correspondence
1 Object
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Artworks
23 Objects
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Business papers
60 Objects
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Personal papers
18 Objects
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Writings
12 Objects
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Printed material
18 Objects
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Photographs
108 Objects
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- Title
- Letters from ‘Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Revolutionnaires’ to Jacques Lipchitz
- Date
- July 1932–2 January 1934
- Description
- Folder contains two letters and two copies of a manifesto and three sets of exhibitions regulations. An official letter dated July 1932 provides information about the General Assembly of all members on 19 July
There are two copies of the Manifesto of 'Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Revolutionnaires' (AEAR), dated August 1933 and signed, among others, by Ozenfant, Signac and Zadkine.
Full text:
'Dear colleague and comrade,
The problems faced by painters and sculptors are so serious that a revision of values and concepts is imperative.
Obsessed with inner concerns within their arts that the multiple formal tendencies cannot satisfy, thus isolated from the outside world, but shaken by a threatening reality (finance and moral insecurities...crisis...war...), some artists persist in being proud of their indifference to everything that doesn't concern their art. But the social conditions influence the nature and the quality of their work.
The role, socially reduced, given to the artists, the illusion of an independent life, or 'a freedom of art', which results in naturally leading it on the path of rhetoric. Pulling its substance from its own fund, exhausting itself with the exercise of eloquence, Contemporary art, despite the quality and the cultural contribution to some of it, disperses its efforts under the sign of individualism. The co-existence of opposite tendencies, which proliferate in opposite proportion to social demands. The problems that these facts raise about the purpose of the arts, the distress it brings and the feelings of each to live in expectation are only symptoms of a new art in social gestation. 'Social' indifference from the artists only expresses a confused denial of composing with a power inclining towards death.
The old social and economic system is falling apart; it drags everything in its fall. To the extent that it is integrated within it, it degenerates the arts: there will be no miracle. There is no way to subtract it from its decomposition: it's within the classes that it 'grows'. Only then can it restore its true social function. In order to confront the essays, research and the realisation oriented in that direction, 'L'A.E.A.R.' will organise an exhibition in December. The contact that could result will make it possible to identify the only valid directions against the current distress.
We invite you to take part. Wishing you, dear colleagues and comrades our sincere wishes.
Adam Eekman.Herbin F.Jourdain. Laurens.J. Lurcat ozenfant. Rosianu. Signac. Zadkine.Zilzer.'
To this Manifesto are attached two copies of the brief Regulations of the exhibition which should take place in December [1933?]. All four pages were kept in the envelope, dated 26 August 1933 with the address of A.E.A.R.
There is a copy, dated December 1933, of the same Manifesto, signed by the same artists. It was kept in the envelope, dated 2 January 1934, with a stamp 'AEAR, 13 Rue du Fo[or 'Fe', the end of word is missing dur to tear], Montmartre'
Another oficial and typed letter, undated, is an Announcement on the First Exhibition of AEAR and its regulations in eight articles. Exhibition will be held at 'Parc des Expositions de la Porte de Versaille', from 25 January to 18 February 1934.
The letterhead reads: 'Association des Ecrivains et Artistes Revolutionnaires. Secretaire General: P. Vaillant-Couturier'. - Reference
- TGA 897/1/1/19
