Philly’s favorite sculptor featured at Art Museum

By MARIE FOWLER

“We would never have a mayor today who would cut funding for the arts,” a mover-and-shaker in the Philadelphia art world was overheard to remark impishly at the opening of the Jacques Lipchitz and Philadelphia exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Our irreverent speaker refers, of course, to the controversy attending former Mayor Frank Rizzo and Lipchitz’s Government of the People in the Municipal Plaza opposite City Hall.

The Lipchitz sculpture was commissioned in accordance with a city mandate that one percent of the construction cost of a new building be set aside for the fine arts. In an attempt to cut city spending, Rizzo balked at footing the bill for a sculpture that famously offended his sensibilities (not to mention that his own comments about the work in question offended even more sensibilities). As many readers will remember, the more polite among the city’s reporters simply paraphrased Hizzoner to the effect that this particular work of art resembled more than anything else, a pile of plaster accidentally dumped by plasterers.

Organized by Michael Taylor, the museum’s newly named Muriel and Philip  Berman Curator of Modern Art, Jacques Lipchitz and Philadelphia includes 60 sculptures and works on paper by one of the 20th century’s most prominent artists. It is, indeed, a celebration of one who regarded himself as “Philadelphia’s chosen son.” At every turn, Taylor has been careful to point out Lipchitz’s close connection with area collections and collectors, resulting in the fact that more of the Lithuanian-born sculptor’s work is found here than anywhere except Israel (which was the beneficiary of Lipchitz’s brother’s vast collection).

Lipchitz (1891-1973) left his native land and headed to Paris in 1909, where he lived among the other mostly “foreign” artists in Montparnasse. It was there that he met Cubist painters Diego Rivera (yes, Virginia, there was life before Frida and the murals), Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris. A jaunt to Spain in the company of Rivera resulted in the earliest works on view — a guitar-playing sailor bent on attracting local beauties. And a fair job this sailor did, too — since more than 90 years later, he’s still attracting admiring glances!

Like many other artists of his day, Lipchitz was fascinated by African art and amassed a credible collection on his own. It was the rumor of that collection that brought the irascible Dr. Albert C. Barnes to Lipchitz’s studio door in 1922. Barnes bought African art and some of Lipchitz’s work as well, and the enormous sum the American collector left in Lipchitz’s hands enabled the sculptor to count himself an overnight success.

Moreover, Barnes commissioned Lipchitz to create a series of bas-reliefs for the outside of his foundation in Merion. A plaster study for one of these, now in the Art Museum’s collection, is on view. Ever ready to flaunt tradition, Barnes is said to have gleefully proclaimed that when his Main Line neighbors saw Lipchitz’s carvings on the building, they would proclaim him “not only a radical but a Bolshevist.”

Amazingly, Taylor coaxed the loan of a Lipchitz stone, Bather, from the Merion institution, which simply doesn’t ever make loans!

Barnes was Lipchitz’s principal benefactor until their eventual falling-out over Lipchitz’s assessment that an El Greco the collector purchased was probably a fake.

Lipchitz moved beyond Cubism during the years between the World Wars, employing mythological and religious themes to comment on the political situation in Europe as the Nazi movement rose and Jewish people came under increasing attack. A Jew himself, subject to anti-Semitism as a child growing up and even as an artist in Paris, Lipchitz used mythological metaphor to bring attention to the tragedy of his people.

Probably the strongest composition in the exhibition is The Prayer, executed entirely in wax in 1943, as the artist admittedly prayed and cried while he worked. (Lipchitz, like Auguste Rodin, was primarily a modeler, working in clay and wax.) It is the figure of a man making a traditional Jewish sacrifice, whirling a cockerel around his head, while sacrificial lambs and goats tumble from his eviscerated gut. Lipchitz offered it as a prayer for friends and family still in danger back in Europe.

When Nazis masquerading as art connoisseurs came around to his studio, Lipchitz knew it was time to flee Europe. He came to New York in 1941, eventually falling in with gallery owner Curt Valentin, who insisted the artist must learn English in order to converse with buyers and collectors. It was during this time that longtime PMA president Sturgis Ingersoll became acquainted with the sculptor and eventually replaced Barnes as a principal benefactor.

In 1952, Lipchitz’s Washington Square studio in New York burned, destroying not only his own work, but also his collections. Fortuitously, the plaster of his monumental Prometheus Strangling the Vulture was on view at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where it had just won a gold medal. The Philadelphia Art Museum purchased the plaster, thereby getting Lipchitz back on his feet. The bronze casting of Prometheus greets visitors at the East Terrace entrance to the Museum. Lipchitz’s comment on the struggle between good and evil, the first version of this work, graced the façade of the Palace of Discovery at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. Like Picasso’s Guernica, also on view at the fair, Prometheus was a blatant comment on Lipchitz’s political reading of the situation in Europe.

Rowers on the Schuylkill and those frequenting Kelly Drive will be familiar with Lipchitz’s Spirit of Enterprise, crafted for the Fairmount Park Art Association to acknowledge America’s pioneer spirit. Studies for this important commission are included in the exhibition.

Indeed, one of the aims of this show, Taylor reasons, is to enable us to see the monumental works we pass every day in a new and informed light. The museum has compiled a walking tour brochure to help visitors locate the sculpture.

Additionally, Taylor feels the Cold War era obscured much of Lipchitz’s political message. And, in reality, the current wave of conceptual art can make sculpture like Lipchitz’s — that is about material and technique, as was Michelangelo’s and Bernini’s — seem “old-fashioned.”

Lipchitz’s most controversial monument for Philadelphia was, of course, the aforementioned Government of the People, which was, in the end, funded by the Fairmount Park Art Association after both art lovers and ordinary citizens came to the artist’s defense in the face of Mayor Rizzo’s opposition. The sculpture was cast in Italy and erected in Center City inn time for the Bicentennial. Sadly, Lipchitz was no longer with us, but a recording of his voice accompanied the dedication ceremonies.

And, as many Philadelphians know, a very realistic rendition of the legendary mayor from South Philly waves to modern-day citizens only a few paces away, in front of the Municipal Services Building. Rizzo finally came to terms with Lipchitz’s very contemporary work, insisting he and even his driver, Tony, liked it. We will confess Hizzoner was never politically correct — but — politically astute? Absolutely!

Jacques Lipchitz and Philadelphia will be on view through August 22. Museum hours are Tuesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. The exhibition and all galleries are open until 8:45 p.m. on Fridays. Wednesday evening hours have been suspended for the time being due to — guess what — uncertainty over city funding of the arts.

For more information, call 215-684-7500 or 215-763-8100.