The sculptor Ossip Zadkine and the painter Valentine Prax, his wife, lived together in the house, the studios and the garden on rue d'Assas almost forty years, from 1928 to 1967. Forty years is precisely the age that the musée Zadkine is reaching this year, since its opening in 1982 in this very place, thanks to Valentine Prax's bequest.
To celebrate this anniversary, the museum is staging the exhibition Ossip Zadkine, une vie d'ateliers (Ossip Zadkine, a lifetime of studios), which takes the visitor into the heart of the two artists' studios.
Among the near one hundred works featured in this display are a fine selection of Zadkine’s masterpieces (including an exceptional loan), as well as rarely shown paintings by Prax and works by photographers such as André Kertész and Marc Vaux, exposed here for the first time. The exhibition occupies all the rooms of the museum in a renewed scenography evoking the "spirit of the studio".
For forty years, the walls and trees of this house have witnessed the daily life and creation of the artist couple. For forty years, the musée Zadkine has been preserving and promoting their respective works, and more particularly that of the sculptor, spearhead of 20th century sculpture renewal.
In a game of mirrors, photographs are associated with sculptures, paintings and drawings by Zadkine and Prax, mainly from the museum's collection, to highlight their living and creative space as a whole.
Until April 2nd, 2023
Just a stone's throw from the Luxembourg Gardens and Montparnasse, the Zadkine Museum is dedicated to the work of the Russian-born sculptor Ossip Zadkine (1888-1967), a master of direct carving and a major figure of the School of Paris and of modernity in sculpture. The museum, nestled in the greenery of his sculpture-filled garden, was the artist's home and workshop. The presentation of the collections highlights the work of the material and creates a dialogue under the light of the glass roofs, between the pieces of work made of wood, carved stone, terracotta and plaster.