Bather III

Artist Jacques Lipchitz (French, 1891-1973)

Date1917

DimensionsH: 27 3/4 in. (70.5 cm); Max Base Diam: 10 1/8 in. (27.7 cm)

MediumCast bronze.

ClassificationSculpture

Credit LinePurchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey

Object number

1991.87

Not on View

Label TextBather III is a rare example of a sculpture that incorporates the movement and multiple points of view that typify Analytic Cubism (for an example of a painting in this style, see Woman in a Black Hat by Picasso in Gallery 3). Jacques Lipchitz met Pablo Picasso in 1913 and the encounter had a lasting impact on Lipchitz’s art. He was able to translate Cubism’s fragmentation of form into sculpture in the round perhaps more successfully than any artist at the time. Deconstructed into a series of interlocking and intersecting planes, the figure’s form is still legible. In addition to the head and general shape of the body, the raised three-fingered hand is clearly identifiable. The bather’s right arm is bent, with another hand at the waist. Rounded shapes create a shoulder on the left and a sensuous hip on the right, identifying the figure’s gender. The exposed, protruding navel in the center of her belly reveals that she is appropriately unclothed for bathing and completes the image of a modern take on the traditional voyeuristic subject of the seductive, but unaware, female bather.Published ReferencesRaynal, Maurice, Lipchitz, Paris, 1920, repr.

Wittlich, Paul J. Lipchitz, Prague, 1966.

Exhibition HistoryThe Arts Club of Chicago, An Exhibition of Cubism on the Occasion of the Fortieth Anniversary of The Arts Club of Chicago, 1955, cat. no. 47.Comparative ReferencesSee also Vitrac, Roger, Jacques Lipchitz, Paris, 1929, repr. p. 33 (stone). Cf. Hope, Henry, The sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz, New York, 1954, p. 11, repr. pp. 31-32 (stone). Cf. Jacques Lipchitz, Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, 1958, no. 19 (bronze). Cf. Lipchitz, Paris, Musée National d'Art Moderne, 1959, no. 19, pl. IV (bronze). Cf. Hammacher, Abraham M., Jacques Lipchitz, his sculpture, New York, 1960, pp. 170, 172, fig. XXVII, repr. pp. 16-18 (stone). Cf. Lipchitz: The Cubist period 1913-1930, New York, Marlborough-Gerson, 1968, no. 28 (bronze). Cf. The Cubist epoch, Los Angeles, County Museum of Art, 1970, no. 194, pl. 309 (bronze 6/7-Norton Simon). Cf. Hammacher, Abraham M., Jacques Lipchitz, New York, 1975, figs. 73, 74, 75 (stone). Cf. Barbier, Nicole, Lipchitz, Paris, 1978, no. 11, pp. 37, 38, 39, repr. (plaster). Cf. Stott, Deborah A., Jacques Lipchitz and Cubism, New York, 1978, pp. 134, 156, 136, fig. 27 (bronze - Barnes Foundation). Cf. Wilkinson, Alan, Jacques Lipchitz, Toronto, 1989, no. 23, p. 82, repr. (bronze 5/7-AGO). Cf. Green, Christopher, Cubism and its Enemies, New Haven, 1987, pp. 26, 29, fig. 30, p. 28. Cf. Wilkinson, Alan G., The sculpture of Jacques Lipchitz: a catalogue raisonne, volume one, the Paris years 1910-1940, London, 1996, no. 62, reprs. p. 47, 147.