Jacques Lipchitz

This exhibition of Lipchitz’s drawings continues the programme of exhibitions devoted to drawing as a basic activity in artistic creation. At the same time it offers a deeper exploration of the work of this artist, whose sculptures were seen in the IVAM’s Gallery 1 in 1997. Unlike drawings made by painters, whose physical world is conceived in two dimensions and normally in a fragmentary way, drawings by sculptors are conceived as potential configurations of three-dimensional forms and often as definitive designs for sculptures that in themselves constitute a physical whole. This difference is splendidly illustrated in the drawings of Jacques Lipchitz, one of the finest sculptors of the twentieth century and one who most successfully incorporated the forms and ideas of Cubism into his work. Lipchitz drew both before and after making his sculptures. For him, drawing was a potential starting-point for sculpture or an exploration of variations on themes and forms already created in three dimensions. In his drawings we can see more clearly his process of self-realisation as he takes stock of his experience and struggles to integrate emerging ideas with form.