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Sunday, August 24, 2014

Happy Birthday Jacques Lipchitz

Cross posted from Samuel Gruber's Jewish Art and Monuments

Happy Birthday Jacques Lipchitz (born Aug. 22, 1891)
by Samuel D. Gruber

Since I'm getting ready to begin teaching my "Jewish Art: From Sinai to Superman" class next week, I thought I'd resume my birthday shout outs for prominent and interesting Jewish artists and architects. Given the name of the course, posthumous felicitations to Lithuanian-born Jacques Lipchitz, born on this day in 1891 in Druskieniki, Lithuania, seem appropriate since a  common theme in his later work was that heroic struggle - often involving a Biblical character.  

Though not quite Superman, David is a superhero as he struggles with Goliath in Lipchitz's 1933 allegorical piece - an important early artistic statement about the Jewish struggles in Europe at the beginning of the Nazi era.  Similarly, a heroic Jacob wrestles with an angel.  Both are allegories for the individual and collective struggles of the time.

 Read the entire post here.

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