Artist
William Zorach was born in Lithuania. His family immigrated to the United States when he was four and settled near Cleveland. After studying at the Cleveland School of Art and the National Academy of Design, New York City, Zorach spent two years in France. Shortly after his return to the United States he took up permanent residence in New York. In 1922 he turned from painting to sculpture. Without formal training in this field he evolved a personal and monumental style that placed him among the foremost sculptors of his day. Carving mainly in stone and in wood, he is known for the simplicity and solidity of his forms. His works are in many private and public collections. In New York the Whitney Museum owns his Pegasus and Future Generation; the Radio City Music Hall has his Spirit of the Dance. Zorach
Provenance
Downtown Gallery, New York (documented in gallery Lists of Stock in February 1947, July 1950, January 2, 1953, and October 7, 1954)
Edward Ackley, November 1954
Dr. Jack Lawrence, New York (later California), 1959
Christie’s, New York, October 7, 1997, lot 210
Collection of Steve Newman, Stamford, CT, acquired from the above sale
Private Collection, Armonk, NY, acquired from the above in 2000, to present
Exhibitions
Downtown Gallery, 22nd Annual Exhibition, New York, 1947 (no. 5)
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, 146th Annual Exhibition of Painting and Sculpture, Philadelphia, January 1951
Downtown Gallery, 1951 (no. 8.)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, The Museum and Its Friends” Twentieth Century American Art from Collections of the Friends of the Whitney Museum, April 30-June 15, 1958 (no. 179, ill.)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1959; Miami, Columbus, and Cincinnati, 1960 (no. 29, ill.)
Literature
Devree, Howard, “Recent Sculpture,” The New York Times, February 25, 1951, Arts Section, p. 9
Baur, John I.H., William Zorach, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1959, fig. 60
“William Zorach has Retrospective Exhibition at the Whitney Museum,” Art Students League
News, vol. 12, no. 8, October-November 1959, p. 2, ill