William Zorach Art

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,...

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, ...

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...

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...

"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...

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...

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...

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...