Jacques Lipchitz and Philadelphia

Produced in conjunction with the exhibition Jacques Lipchitz and Philadelphia at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from June 27 to August 22, 2004, this publication examines the special relationship between Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973) and the city of Philadelphia. The artist's involvement with the city spanned more than fifty years, beginning in 1922, when Dr. Albert C. Barnes commissioned him to execute bas-reliefs for the Barnes Foundation building in nearby Merion, and culminating in 1976, when Lipchitz's monumental sculpture Government of the People was posthumously unveiled near City Hall. During the last three decades of his life, following his move to the United States in 1941, Lipchitz was a frequent visitor to Philadelphia, where he received major commissions for public sculpture, was twice honoured by the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and had an important retrospective exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1964. The text by Michael R. Taylor, Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, is extensively illustrated with the outstanding works by Lipchitz found throughout the area, including at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, whose already impressive holdings of his art - the largest collection outside of Israel - were further enriched by the recent gift of five sculptures from the Jacques and Yulla Lipchitz Foundation in honour of the institution's 125th Anniversary. A checklist of the works in the exhibition completes the publication.