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
- Correspondence between Cesare Sofianopulo and Jacques Lipchitz
- Date
- 1940–6
- Description
- Contains an undated draft letter to 'Cesare' from Lipchitz and a postcard from Cesare Sofianopulo to Lipchitz. Both are identified mostly by content: both 'Cesare' lived in Trieste. Lipchitz asks 'Cesare' to help him to reunite with his niece Ira Kon, an orphan of 18 years old, the daughter of his sister [Zhenya or Eugenia, who died in 1928] 'who, dying, entrusted her daughter to my care'. Lipchitz describes that he and Rubin were planning to transfer Ira from Warsaw to Paris to continue her studies, but then the war started. Only via Red Cross he found out that Ira is alive, and is hiding at a friendly family.Lipchitz asks Cesare to help her via Italian embassy in Warsaw, and to send her to Trieste. These plans did not suceeded, Ira was murdered by the Nazis soon after. In his postcard dated 6 August 1946 to Lipchitz Cesare Sofianopulo express his joy to learn that Lipchitz is alive and safe in the USA, in 'secure refuge' of MOMA in New York. He also tells his own 'odyssey': as a Greek by birth all his possessions were sequestred, the villa of his brother was bomdeb four times during the war, nothing left, all this time he had six lire daily.
- Reference
- TGA 897/1/1/353
