La Naissance de l'Amour (The Birth of Love)

Ossip Zadkine

(Russian/French, 1890-1967)

Signed O.Zadkine
Stamped Susse Fondeur, Paris, and numbered 4/8
Bronze with black, brown and golden patina
Height: 44 7/8" (114 cm)

Conceived in 1930 and this example cast circa 1971.
Edition 4 of 8, there are no lifetime casts.

Provenance
Private collection, Japan


Conceived in 1930 in plaster this sculpture was not cast in bronze until 1971 when the Susse foundry an edition of 8 plus 4 artist proofs. Cast ⅜ is in the Musée Zadkine. There are no lifetime casts.

Born in Vitebsk (now Belarus), Zadkine eventually settled in Paris in 1910 following a period at art school in London. In Paris he studied briefly in the studio of Jean-Antoine Injalbert before setting up on his own. His early career was linked heavily with that of the emerging cubist movement and Zadkine met regularly with Brancusi, Picasso Serge Ferrat and later Modigliani with whom he shared a studio after World War I.

From 1925 Zadkine developed compositions of greater complexity, often with several figures and an interplay of convex and concave plane which is masterfully demonstrated with this sculpture.

This intimate sculpture shows the happy family group—Mother with her arm tenderly around Father’s waist and both embracing the child who in turn reaches up and touches Father’s face.

Other works by Zadkine are in numerous major museum collections around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Tate Gallery, London. One of his best-known public works is The Destroyed City a six-meter-high memorial to the destruction of the city of Rotterdam during the Second World War. The small version of the work, standing eight feet high, is now in the Collection of the Museum of Modern art in Paris.

Maenads, 1934, Musée National d’Art Moderne, Paris

Venus, c.1922-4, Tate collection