In October 1945 I returned from America, where I had stayed during the war. I arrived in Le Havre, full of ruins, a carcass of a city. It took one ni… - Ossip Zadkine

" "

In October 1945 I returned from America, where I had stayed during the war. I arrived in Le Havre, full of ruins, a carcass of a city. It took one night to reach Paris on a train with no windows. That night I got the idea for the monument. I sketched it on paper and forgot about it, until I visited Rotterdam for the first time in 1947. I saw a city without a heart. I saw a crater in the body of a city. And I remembered that night, the sketches. I made a small terracotta model and sent it to an exhibition of French art in Germany.

English
Collect this quote

About Ossip Zadkine

Ossip Zadkine (July 4, 1890 – November 25, 1967) was a Russian-born sculptor-artist who lived mainly in France where he was at first working in a Cubist idiom from 1914 to 1925. Later Zadkine developed his characteristic style, strongly influenced by African and Greek art.

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Osip Zadkine Osip Zadkin Oshippu Zakkin Osip Cadkin Joë Zadkine Osip Tsadkin
Unlimited Quote Collections

Organize your favorite quotes without limits. Create themed collections for every occasion with Premium.

Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.

Additional quotes by Ossip Zadkine

Whatever the apparent aim of the artist, he is called upon first to move the spectator, after having been himself struck by a design or color composition which may or may not have a relation to natural objects. His predilections, his preferences, crystallize afterwards in the choice of means to interpret those natural objects; these means are always, obligingly, of imaginary essence.

My huge monument to the bombing of Rotterdam [in 1940, by the German aircraft], for instance, was the third and final version of this figure. Once the model had been accepted in principle and the scale agreed on, I began working on a new version of it, conceiving it to a great extent in terms of the effects of the changes of lighting in which such a monument would been seen in the open air. [c. 1960]

Works in ChatGPT, Claude, or Any AI

Add semantic quote search to your AI assistant via MCP. One command setup.

I do not believe that art must develop on national lines, but I am convinced that there never was and never will be an international art. There is and was French, German, Italian, and Flemish art. But I deny those specific definitions so fashionable with adepts of fascism which make of every country an hermetic cell from which all foreign artists are excluded. [shortly after the end of the German occupation]

Loading...