Like Léger, Mondrian, Chagall and many other European artists, Zadkine took refuge in the United States during World War II, where this work was made. Zadkine later wrote that the stone was among the hardest he had carved, hence the lack of detail and the rough surface. ‘Torse de femme’ resembles a sculpture from antiquity, damaged and fragmented, yet mounted heroically on a base. Whilst in America, Zadkine could not forget the destruction that was being felt in Europe and this work perhaps denotes the terrible human toll of the war.
Ossip Zadkine (French, 1890 - 1967)
Painter and sculptor Ossip Zadkine was born in Russia. In 1905 he was sent to stay with his mother’s Scottish relatives in Sunderland and became interested in wood carving after watching his uncle make furniture. The following year he moved to London to study art, intending to earn a living as a stonecutter. There, he became friends with the artist David Bomberg, who took him to the British Museum and introduced him to classical sculpture. Zadkine later moved to Paris, where he was associated with the School of Paris and was particularly influenced by Cubism. Taking the human body as his primary subject, he would often return to sculpting heads and torsos. From around 1925, Zadkine began to model in bronze, developing more complex compositions, sometimes with several figures.
![Torse de femme [Torso of a Woman]](http://www.nationalgalleries.org/media/42/collection/GMA 2965.jpg)
