William Zorach Art
American, 1887-1966
Born in 1887, by 1930, he was one of America’s premier 20th century sculptors and was honored with multiple commissions and exhibitions including at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Dallas Museum of Fine Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and numerous others.
He studied in New York City at the National Academy of Design and also in Paris under the mentoring of Jacques-Emile Blanche. It was in Paris in the first decade of the 20th century where Zorach’s path crossed with Marguerite, his soon to be wife. Both Marguerite and William were both represented in the landmark Armory Show of 1913.
William continued to paint for the next two decades, but increasingly experimenting with sculpture. By the mid 20’s he was carving significant works in marble and stone. By the early 30’s, he abandoned painting entirely in favor of a new art form, sculpture. I t was in sculpture that Zorach found his true voice as an artist and achieved considerable success. “Sculpture, direct carving, was an expanding universe, a liberation and a natural form of expression to me.” Zorach stated.
Museum Collections:
Amon Carter Museum of American Art
Arizona State University Art Museum
Boca Raton Museum of Art
Butler Institute of American Art
Cleveland Artists Foundation
Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center
Cornish Colony Museum
Dallas Museum of Art
Delaware Art Museum
Edwin a Ulrich Museum of Art
Farnsworth Art Museum
Flint Institute of Arts
Frederick R Weisman Art Museum
Georgia Museum of Art
Herbert F Johnson Museum of Art
Jack S Blanton Museum of Art
LaSalle University Art Museum
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Lowe Art Museum
Marion Koogler McNay Art Museum
Memorial Art Gallery
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC
Middlebury College Museum of Art
Minneapolis Institute of Arts
Mobile Museum of Art
Museum of Fine Art-Boston
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Portland Museum of Art
Smithsonian Museum of Art
The Brooklyn Museum of Art
The Canton Museum of Art
The Columbus Museum of Art-Ohio
The Columbus Museum-Georgia
The Cummer Museum Of Art & Gardens
The Currier Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Newark Museum
The Phillips Collection
The Phillips Museum of Art
The University of Michigan Museum of Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
Worcester Art Museum
Yosemite Museum
(Biography provided by Lynda Anderson Galleries)
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Cast stone Sculpture of Nude with Cat by William Zorach
By William Zorach
Located in Montreal, QC
Cast stone Sculpture of Nude with Cat by William Zorach Incised signature near base '©WZ Zorach William Zorach' with publisher's mark. This work is from the edition published by Robi...
Category
1940s American Art Deco Vintage William Zorach Art
Materials
Cast Stone
"Look Award to William Goetz", Gold Art Deco Medal for Film Achievement, 1952
By William Zorach
Located in Philadelphia, PA
Important both artistically and historically, this unique gold medallion for Film Achievement was commissioned by Look magazine, sculpted by William Zorach, struck by the the renowne...
Category
1950s American Art Deco Vintage William Zorach Art
Materials
Gold
William Zorach Watercolor Painting, Forest Landscape
By William Zorach
Located in Lake Worth Beach, FL
Artist/Designer; Manufacturer: William Zorach (American, 1887-1966)
Marking(s); notes: signed, marking(s); 1942
Materials: watercolor on paper
Dimensions (H, W, D): 22"h, 15"w; 33"h,...
Category
20th Century William Zorach Art
Materials
Watercolor
PORTRAIT OF NATHANIEL KAZ
By William Zorach
Located in Portland, ME
Zorach, William (American 1887-1966). PORTRAIT OF NATHANIEL KAZ. Pencil on paper, 1956. Inscribed and signed by Zorach as follows: "Nat Kaz / William Zorach / Sept 19 1920 / Feb 19, ...
Category
1950s William Zorach Art
Materials
Graphite
Watercolor Painting by William Zorach, Titled "Redwoods, Yosemite Valley", 1920
By William Zorach
Located in New York, NY
William Zorach, 1887-1966
Redwoods, Yosemite Valley, 1920
Watercolor and pencil
15 ¾ x 13 ⅜ inches
Signed (at lower right): William Zorach
WZorach-7
Provenance:
Estate of William Zorach
Exhibited:
William Zorach, 1887-1996, Sculpture, Drawings and Watercolors, Zabriskie Gallery, New
York; Feb. 10 – March 14, 1998.
William Zorach was born in Lithuania in 1889, and immigrated to the United States with his
family in 1893. Settling in Cleveland with his parents, he worked as a lithographer from 1902-
1908, making enough money to study painting with Henry G. Keller at the School of Art. In
1910, Zorach traveled to Paris to study in La Palette, where he was encouraged to develop his
own unique style rather than adhere to traditional teachings. Zorach once said, “I began to be
conscious of the various modern influences that were invading the art world…I was disturbed
and confused, and yet I felt that I was a very young man entering a new age. The forces creating
modern art seemed more alive to me than anything I had known or anything being done in
America.” 1 Together with his wife Marguerite, William Zorach produced a number of Cubist-
style paintings for the American Armory Show of 1913, and the Forum Exhibition in New York
in 1916.
Around 1917, Zorach followed the lead of cubist artist Pablo Picasso and began experimenting
with wood and stone carvings. By 1922, he devoted himself entirely to sculpture, and like
Picasso, became fascinated in “primitive art”—the ritual objects and sculpture pieces of Oceanic,
Native American and African tribes. Zorach’s work developed in its use of block-like forms with
progressive suppression of detail—drawing elements from sources as disparate as the
contemporary cubist and modernist movements, and combining them with forms seen in early
African sculpture. Though the forms of his sculpture were often abstract, Zorach primarily
focused upon a traditional subject matter, producing such well-known sculptures as Young Girl,
now in the Whitney Museum of American Art, and Mother and Child, in the collection of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today, William Zorach is known as one of the earliest and most
influential American artists dedicated to direct carving. Zorach also made an impression as a
teacher and writer, facilitating a major change in the aesthetic philosophy and technique of
sculpture in the United States.
During the summers from 1913 to 1922, Zorach and his wife Marguerite painted...
Category
1920s William Zorach Art
Materials
Watercolor, Pencil
William Zorach Oil on Canvas Painting Titled "Kiddie Kar", Dated 1920
By William Zorach
Located in New York, NY
Kiddie Kar exemplifies the integration of the primitive aesthetic and the depiction of family in William’s work. The primitive aspect of this particular painting is apparent in its d...
Category
1920s William Zorach Art
Materials
Oil
"Pioneer Family" WPA American Modernism Plaster Maquette Realism 20th Century
By William Zorach
Located in New York, NY
"Pioneer Family," 23 1/2 x 16 1/4 x 10 3/4 inPlaster. c. 1927. Unsigned. Realism
The Smithsonian has a cast of this sculpture in its collection. Pictured on the cover of “The Sculpt...
Category
1920s American Modern William Zorach Art
Materials
Plaster
"Father, Son and Daughter, " Rare and Charming Bronze Relief Sculpture by Zorach
By William Zorach
Located in Philadelphia, PA
Beautifully sculpted and realized in bronze with a warm, deep brown patina, this relief panel by William Zorach depicts a father directly facing the viewer, embracing his son and daughter who are both engrossed in the care of a long-tailed bird. Zorach was renowned for his sculptures of the American family in different configurations, and he also loved depicting the house cat in different poses, all of which gave evidence of his love of domestic life in the 1930s. The artist was born in Lithuania, grew up in Cleveland, and spent much of his life in New England with his wife, Marguerite Zorach, an important artist in her own right. Although Zorach was a painter as well as a sculptor, he may be best known for a large female nude...
Category
1930s American Art Deco Vintage William Zorach Art
Materials
Bronze
Hen, Gilded Hen in Polished Bronze
By William Zorach
Located in Brookville, NY
This Sculpture "Hen" by William Zorach in polished bronze is numbered 3/6 although according to the artist son, only 4 were ever cast. Executed in 1946, signed on the reverse and nu...
Category
1940s American Modern William Zorach Art
Materials
Bronze
"Beach Day"
By William Zorach
Located in Southampton, NY
This is a very early painting by William Zorach done mostly likely when he was a student at the National Academy of Design in 1910 in New York. It is done in an impressionist style w...
Category
Early 1900s American Impressionist William Zorach Art
Materials
Board, Oil
Quebec City, Fauve Landscape
By William Zorach
Located in Miami, FL
Wonderful Fauve Landscape with blocky areas of punchy bold reds and yellows. This was done the same year of the Armory Show in which both William Zor...
Category
Early 20th Century Expressionist William Zorach Art
Materials
Watercolor
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Previously Available Items
Girl with Clasped Hands
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Signed and dated lower right (see photo)
Provenance: Gift of the Artist
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Zorach, William (American, 1887-1966). LANDSCAPE WITH CLOUDS. Watercolor and pencil on paper, not dated, but circa 1913. Unsigned, but inscribed verso "By William Zorach/(Tessim Zorach)." Tessim Zorach, (1915-1995) was the eldest of the children of William and Marguerite Zorach. 8 x 11 1/2 inches, the full sheet. Provenance, Tessim Zorach, Zabriskie Gallery...
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Zorach, William (American, 1887-1966). LANDSCAPE WITH CLOUDS. Watercolor on paper, 1913. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right. 9 1/2 x 11 inches, the full sheet. Provenance, The a...
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William Zorach Art
William Zorach art for sale on 1stDibs.
Find a wide variety of authentic William Zorach art available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by William Zorach in paint, watercolor, oil paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large William Zorach art, so small editions measuring 7 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Walter Beach Humphrey, Stuart Davis, and Jan Matulka. William Zorach art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $1,875 and tops out at $45,000, while the average work can sell for $18,000.