Lassaw, Ibram

Lassaw, Ibram (1913– ). American sculptor, born in Egypt of Russian parents. His family emigrated to the USA in 1921 and he became an American citizen in 1928. He studied at various art colleges in New York. By 1933 he was experimenting with abstract sculpture (one of the first Americans to do so) and in 1936 he was a founder of American Abstract Artists (he was president 1946–9). Most of his early work was in plaster, but during his army service in the Second World War he learnt the welding techniques that led to the creation of his distinctive mature style in about 1950. From this time he began making three-dimensional latticework constructions in welded bronze and steel, looking rather like some kind of bizarre scaffolding. In the 1960s his work became more expressive and sometimes took on a suggestion of natural forms. He was a serious student of Zen and his later work has sometimes been held to be expressive of the serenity and sense of cosmic oneness associated with that philosophy. It includes several large indoor and outdoor commissions for religious buildings and private residences.