By Ibram Lassaw
Located in Surfside, FL
IBRAM LASSAW
(Russian-American, 1913-2003),
Sculptural pendant
Gold plated bronze
Signed verso
Measurements: 2-7/8''h, 2-1/4''w.
Ibram Lassaw was born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Russian Jewish émigré parents. After briefly living in Marseille, France, Naples, Italy Tunis, Malta, and Constantinople, Turkey his family settled in Brooklyn, New York, in 1921.His family settled in Brooklyn, New York. He became a US citizen in 1928. Ibram Lassaw, one of America's first abstract sculptors, was best known for his open-space welded sculptures of bronze, silver, copper and steel. Drawing from Surrealism, Constructivism, and Cubism, Lassaw pioneered an innovative welding technique that allowed him to create dynamic, intricate, and expressive works in three dimensions. As a result, he was a key force in shaping New York School sculpture.He first studied sculpture in 1926 at the Clay Club and later at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York. He made abstract paintings and drawings influenced by Kandinsky, Sophie Taeuber Arp, and other artists. He also attended the City College of New York. Lassaw’s encounter with avant-garde art in the International Exhibition of Modern Art (1926), organized by the Société Anonyme at the Brooklyn Museum, made a powerful impression on him. In the early 1930s he explored new materials and notions of open-space sculpture. The ideas of László Moholy-Nagy and Buckminster Fuller were important to him, and he knew the work of Julio González, Pablo Picasso, and the Russian Constructivists. After experimenting with plaster, rubber and wire, Lassaw began working with steel, which became a frequent medium for the artist, along with other metals. His work reflects the influence of Surrealist artists such as Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miro as well as American Modernist Alexander Calder.A pioneer of abstract sculpture in the United States, in 1936 Lassaw was a founding member of the organization American Abstract Artists. Between 1933 and 1942 he worked for various federal arts projects: the Public Works of Art Project, Civil Works Authority, and WPA, the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project. In 1938 he produced his first welded work. He served with the U.S. Army, where he learned direct welding techniques. During the 1940s he experimented with cage constructions and with acrylic plastics, adding color to his sculptures by applying dye directly to their surfaces. In 1949 Lassaw was a founder of the Club, an informal discussion group of avant-garde artists that had developed from gatherings at his studio, on Eighth Street.
During the mid-1930s, Lassaw worked briefly for the Public Works of Art Project cleaning sculptural monuments around New York City. He subsequently joined the WPA as a teacher and sculptor until he was drafted into the army in 1942. Lassaw's contribution to the advancement of sculptural abstraction went beyond mere formal innovation; his promotion of modernist styles during the 1930s did much to insure the growth of abstract art in the United States. He was one of the founding members of the American Abstract Artists group, and served as president of the American Abstract Artists organization from 1946 to 1949. In 1951, Samuel Kootz invited Lassaw to join his gallery in New York. He also had a summer gallery in Provincetown, MA. Lassaw had been summering in Provincetown since 1944, and in 1951 rented an apartment next door to the Kootz Gallery. Among the artists in the Kootz Gallery were Jean Arp, William Baziotes, Georges Braque, Jean Dubuffet, Herbert Ferber, Arshile Gorky, Adolph Gottlieb, David Hare, Hans Hofmann, Fernand Leger, Georges Mathieu, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Pablo Picasso, Pierre Soulages, and Maurice de Vlaminck. Lassaw is a sculptor who was a part of the New York School of Abstract expressionism during the 1940s and 1950s. Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, James Brooks, Willem de Kooning, and several other artists like Lassaw spent summers on the Southern Shore of Long Island. Lassaw spent summers on Long Island from 1955 until he moved there permanently in 1963.
SELECT EXHIBITIONS
1961 International Exhibition of Modern Jewelry 1890–1961, organized by the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum, London
1967 Exhibition of Jewelry by Painters and Sculptors, organized for circulation by MoMA
1973 Jewelry...
Category
Mid-20th Century Abstract Sculptures
