William Zorach

William Zorach (1887-1966), American sculptor and painter, sought to vitalize the traditional figurative sculpture by turning to African, Egyptian, and Near Eastern art for inspiration. He pioneered in carving directly in wood and stone.

William Zorach was born in Eurberg, Lithuania. His father emigrated to America in the hope of bettering his condition. The Zorachs settled in Ohio, and William attended the public schools. In 1903 he went to Cleveland to learn a trade and attended art school at night. He studied painting at the National Academy of Design in New York City (1907-1910) and then went to Paris. There he saw his first modern art and was particularly attracted to cubism. Before long Zorach was painting abstractly. In 1911 he returned to America. Two of his paintings were accepted for the famous 1913 Armory Show in New York.

In 1917 Zorach made his first sculpture. Though it was done merely as a diversion, he was soon devoting himself entirely to carving. One of his early works, Two Children (a mahogany, 1922), was successful enough to convince him to make sculpture a full-time occupation. In 1924 he executed his first piece in stone: a portrait head of his wife.

Though Zorach was completely self-taught as a sculptor, he knew what he wanted. "Real sculpture," he said in 1925, "is something monumental, something hewn from solid mass, something with repose, with inner and outer form, with strength and power." Such qualities are seen in Child with Cat (1926). Carved from Tennessee marble, it is compact and simple. The quality of the stone as a hard, resisting material is not violated—that is, not made to suggest flesh, fur, hair, or any other substance.

Zorach had his first one-man show in 1924. In 1929 he accepted a post at the Art Students' League, where he taught for more than 30 years. He received national attention with his Mother and Child (1931), a monumental marble. He began receiving commissions for monumental pieces, among them Benjamin Franklin (1937) for the Post Office Building, Washington, D.C. His basreliefs for the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. (1952-1953), are considered among his best efforts in architectural decoration.

During the 1940s Zorach did a series of heads of a monumental character. Best known is his Head of Christ (1940). Christ is represented unconventionally as being like a peasant, a tough yet beautiful man. He often returned to favored themes, such as the mother and child in the Future Generation (1942-1947) and the lovers in Youth (1936) and Lovers (1958). Critics found Zorach's later pieces sentimental and less inventive than earlier work.

Further Reading

Zorach's own writings are Zorach Explains Sculpture (1947) and Art Is My Life: The Autobiography of William Zorach (1967), essential reading for the Zorach scholar. Recommended studies are Paul S. Wingert, The Sculpture of William Zorach (1938), and John I. H. Baur, William Zorach (1959). □

Zorach, William (1889–1966). Lithuanian-born American sculptor. His family emigrated to the USA when he was 4 and he was brought up in Cleveland, Ohio, where he was apprenticed to a commercial lithographer and attended evening classes at Cleveland Institute of Art. In 1907 he moved to New York and studied at the National Academy of Design. After living in Paris for a year, 1910–11, he returned to Cleveland, then settled permanently in New York in 1912 (from the 1950s he also had a summer home in Bath, Maine). Initially Zorach worked as a painter in a Fauvist style, but he took up sculpture in 1917 and abandoned painting (apart from water-colours) about five years later. His sculpture is figurative and its salient characteristics are firm contours, block-like bulk, and suppression of details: ‘I owe most', he said, ‘to the great periods of primitive carving in the past—not to the modern or the classical Greeks, but to the Africans, the Persians, the Mesopotamians, the archaic Greeks and of course to the Egyptians.’ He was a pioneer in America of direct carving in stone and wood and in this as well as in his formal austerity he exercised a powerful influence on modern American sculpture. He had numerous major commissions, including relief carvings for the Municipal Court Building, New York (1958). His most most famous work is not a carving, however, but the alumimium Spirit of the Dance (1932) for Radio City Music Hall, New York—a heroic female figure that was banished for a time because of its nudity but reinstated through public pressure. Zorach taught at the Art Students League from 1929 to 1966. He wrote two books, Zorach Explains Sculpture (1947) and a posthumously published autobiography, Art is my Life (1967), as well as numerous articles on art; two of his articles on his own work were put together in book form as William Zorach (1945).

His wife, Marguerite Thompson Zorach (1887–1968), was one of America's leading modernist painters in the years immediately before and immediately after the Armory Show (1913), in which both she and her husband exhibited. At this time she painted in a style influenced by Fauvism and Expressionism. In her later career, however, much of her time was spent selflessly helping her husband with his sculptural commissions, producing many of the preliminary drawings for his work.

Zorach, William (b Eurburg [now Yurbarkas], 1889; d Bath, Me., 15 Nov. 1966). Lithuanian-born American sculptor. Initially Zorach worked as a painter in a vivid Fauvist style, but he took up sculpture in 1917 and abandoned painting (apart from watercolours) about five years later. His sculpture is figurative and its salient characteristics are firm contours, blocklike bulk, and suppression of details: ‘I owe most’, he said, ‘to the great periods of primitive carving in the past—not to the modern or the classical Greeks, but to the Africans, the Persians, the Mesopotamians, the archaic Greeks and of course to the Egyptians.’ He was a pioneer in America of the revival of direct carving in stone and wood and in this as well as in his formal austerity he exercised a powerful influence on modern American sculpture. He had numerous major commissions, including relief carvings for the Municipal Court Building, New York (1958). His most famous work is not a carving, however, but the aluminium Spirit of the Dance (1932) for Radio City Music Hall, New York—a heroic female figure that was banished for a time because of its nudity but reinstated by public pressure. Zorach taught at the Art Students League from 1929 to 1966. His wife Marguerite Thompson Zorach (1887–1968) was one of America's leading modernist painters in the years immediately before and immediately after the Armory Show (1913), in which both she and her husband exhibited. At this time she painted in a style influenced by Fauvism and Expressionism. In her later career, however, much of her time was spent selflessly helping her husband with his sculptural commissions, producing many of the preliminary drawings for his work.

Zorach, William (1889–1966). Lithuanian-born American sculptor. Initially Zorach worked as a painter in a vivid Fauvist style, but he took up sculpture in 1917 and abandoned painting (apart from watercolours) about five years later. His sculpture is figurative and its salient characteristics are firm contours, block-like bulk, and suppression of details: ‘I owe most’, he said, ‘to the great periods of primitive carving in the past—not to the modern or the classical Greeks, but to the Africans, the Persians, the Mesopotamians, the archaic Greeks and of course to the Egyptians.’ He was a pioneer in America of the revival of direct carving in stone and wood and in this as well as in his formal austerity he exercised a powerful influence on modern American sculpture. He had numerous major commissions, including relief carvings for the Municipal Court Building, New York (1958). His most famous work is not a carving, however, but the aluminium Spirit of the Dance (1932) for Radio City Music Hall, New York—a heroic female figure that was banished for a time because of its nudity but reinstated by public pressure. Zorach taught at the Art Students League from 1929 to 1966. His wife, Marguerite Thompson Zorach (1887–1968), was one of America's leading modernist painters in the years immediately before and immediately after the Armory Show (1913), in which both she and her husband exhibited. At this time she painted in a style influenced by Fauvism and Expressionism. In her later career, however, much of her time was spent selflessly helping her husband with his sculptural commissions, producing many of the preliminary drawings for his work.

William Zorach , 1887–1966, American sculptor, b. Lithuania. His family emigrated 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 taught at the Art Students League.

Bibliography: See his Zorach Explains Sculpture (1960) and Art Is My Life (1967); study by J. I. H. Baur (1959).