Portraits of The-Non-Existent-Bird. - OSSIP ZADKINE.

From 6 to 8 May 2020 - Musée. Institut du monde arabe.

  • Zadkine, Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau ... 1

    Portrait de l'Oiseau-Qui-N'Existe-Pas et Autres poèmes. Claude Aveline, Geneva, 1964. Artist book, 25 x 33 cm. Poems illustrated with 18 original lithographs. Edition of 195 copies, each one numbered and signed by the poet and the artist. Donation Claude & France Lemand. Museum, Institut du monde arabe, Paris. © The Estates of Ossip Zadkine and Claude Aveline. Courtesy Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris.

  • ZADKINE, Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existe-Pas.

    Portrait de l'Oiseau-Qui-N'Existe-Pas, 1957. Graphite on paper. Donation by Claude Aveline to MNAM, Centre Georges Pompidou, O D AM 2832 D.

  • Zadkine/Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau ... 2

    Ossip Zadkine, Claude Aveline, Portrait de l'Oiseau-Qui-N'Existe-Pas et Autres poèmes, Geneva, 1964. Artist book, 25 x 33 cm. Poems illustrated with 18 original lithographs. Edition of 195 copies, each one numbered and signed by the poet and the artist.

  • ZADKINE, Litho, Portrait de l’Oiseau ... .

    Portrait de l'Oiseau-Qui-N'Existe-Pas, ca 1960. Original litho, signed and numbered 46/50, 50 x 35 cm. Donation Claude & France Lemand. Museum, Institut du monde arabe, Paris. © The Estate of Ossip Zadkine. Courtesy Galerie Claude Lemand, Paris.

  • Zadkine/Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau ... 12

    Ossip Zadkine, Claude Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existe-Pas et Autres poèmes, Genève, 1965. Artist book, 25 x 33 cm. Poems by Claude Aveline, accompanied by 18 original lithographs by Ossip Zadkine.

  • Zadkine/Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau ... 13

    Ossip Zadkine, Claude Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existe-Pas et Autres poèmes, Genève, 1965. Artist book, 25 x 33 cm. Poems by Claude Aveline, accompanied by 18 original lithographs by Ossip Zadkine.

  • Zadkine/Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau ... 15

    Ossip Zadkine, Claude Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existe-Pas et Autres poèmes, Genève, 1965. Artist book, 25 x 33 cm. Poems by Claude Aveline, accompanied by 18 original lithographs by Ossip Zadkine.

  • Zadkine/Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau ... 17

    Ossip Zadkine, Claude Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existe-Pas et Autres poèmes, Genève, 1965. Artist book, 25 x 33 cm. Poems by Claude Aveline, accompanied with 18 original lithographs by Ossip Zadkine.

  • Zadkine/Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau ... 18

    Ossip Zadkine, Claude Aveline, Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existe-Pas et Autres poèmes, Genève, 1965. Artist book, 25 x 33 cm. Poems by Claude Aveline, accompanied by 18 original lithographs by Ossip Zadkine.

  • Ossip ZADKINE, Portraits de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existe-Pas.

    Portrait de l’Oiseau-Qui-N’Existe-Pas & Autres poèmes, 1964. Poems by Claude Aveline, accompanied by 18 original lithographs by Ossip Zadkine, under cover, 33 x 25 cm. Printed in Paris and published in Geneva. Limited edition of 195 copies, numbered and signed by the poet and the artist. Donation Claude & France Lemand 2018. Museum, Institut du monde arabe, Paris. © The Estate of Ossip Zadkine and The Estate of Claude Aveline.

PORTRAITS OF THE-NON-EXISTENT-BIRD - OSSIP ZADKINE

The Birds of Ossip Zadkine.
Claude Lemand.

The bird theme did not inspire Ossip Zadkine, nei­ther in his sculp­tures nor in his paint­ings and engrav­ings. Representing the human body of both men and women is the core of his artistic uni­verse and it is his only con­cern. However, he pro­duced a plaster sculp­ture enti­tled The Golden Bird in South of France in 1926. The sun was his source of inspi­ra­tion for his colors, red and gold, « the gold leaves create an effect of majestic feathers ».

Claude Aveline met Zadkine at the Palais de Tokyo, Paris, during the artist’s first solo ret­ro­spec­tive in 1949 that Jean Cassou orga­nized for him. Cassou was a poet, writer, member of the resis­tance, gen­eral director of the National Museum of Modern Art of Paris since 1945 as well as being Claude Aveline’s child­hood friend and the latter’s resis­tance com­panion at the Musée de l’Homme. The fol­lowing year in 1950, Zadkine was awarded the great sculp­ture prize at the Venice Biennial, whilst the prize for painting was awarded to Matisse.

Aveline became a close friend of Zadkine, who drew for him a Portrait of The-Non-Existent-Bird in 1957 (Gift of Claude Aveline, MNAM, Centre Georges Pompidou), a large drawing on paper of a man-bird exe­cuted in his sig­na­ture expres­sion­istic style. In 1964, Aveline’s poem stim­u­lated the artist’s imag­i­na­tion and appar­ently revived his Russian cul­tural roots. Zadkine drew 18 colour Portraits of The-Non-Existent-Bird, which were then repro­duced in lithographs by Mourlot in Paris: expres­sion­istic or baroque man-birds, fan­tasy and lyrical chimera-like birds. The author and the artist exhib­ited this book in Paris and pro­moted it together. An inter­view recorded from the radio can be found in the col­lec­tions of the INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel), in which Claude Aveline and Ossip Zakine realise that their par­ents come from the same vil­lage in Russia!

The bird is the last theme that inspired Zadkine just like Claude Aveline’s bust was his last sculp­ture. The day after Zadkine passed away, Claude Aveline pub­lished an article in Le Figaro, a tribute to the great sculptor’s genius and a detailed account of Zadkine’s tech­nique used to realise his bust, the last piece com­pleted before the artist’s death.

Copyright © Galerie Claude Lemand 2012.

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