Interview with Cécilie Champy-Vinas, curator and director of the Musée Zadkine

Welcome back to the director of the Musée Zadkine, Cécilie Champy-Vinas. From November 14, 2024 to March 30, 2025, the Musée Zadkine will exhibit the artistic friendship between the sculptor Ossip Zadkine and the painter Amedeo Modigliani. Before Modigliani, Zadkine's artistic relationship with Chana Orloff was exhibited. What do you find in Ossip Zadkine's artistic frequentations, what artistic relevance do you see in these friendships?

It felt important to us to remind the public that Ossip Zadkine lived and worked at the center of the art scene of his time. Zadkine was fully part of the Golden age of Montparnasse, to which he contributed just as much as other artists and writers, such as Modigliani of course, but also the painter Marc Chagall or the poet Blaise Cendrars, who were both friends with Zadkine. The buzzing artistic atmosphere of Montparnasse has dimmed overtime, and our current exhibition in the Zadkine Museum is the opportunity to replace Zadkine’s work in its original context. The artists of the School of Paris, to which Modigliani and Zadkine are attached, all lived within a very small perimeter, and this geographical closeness induced close friendships and crisscrossing influences. That is one of the exhibition’s points of interest.

What artistic elements qualify the two friends as avant-garde for the period of the early twentieth century?

When they met in 1913, Modigliani and Zadkine were both sculptors. They both wished to break off from 19^th-century traditions, which still prevailed in sculpture. Both preferred direct carving, which was a way to confront the heritage of Rodin, who was the most celebrated sculptor then, but whose legacy was being increasingly challenged, because he mostly modelled and employed assistants to actually carve for him. In their earlier years, Modigliani and Zadkine, somewhat defiantly, carved their works themselves. Modigliani and Zadkine also both drew inspiration from new models and new sources such as extra-European arts, African or Khmer arts. At the time, such arts were considered more genuine and seemed to retain a sacred quality that was felt to be missing from realistic 19^th-century sculpture. It is quite significant that Modigliani, as the sculptor Jacob Epstein recalled, used to place candles on top of his sculptures at night in his studio, to turn it into some kind of “primitive temple”!  

Can you express how much each influenced the other in the development of their art?

It is always a tricky task to try and determine how two artists might have influenced one another. We have rather tried to show how influences circulated back and forth between them, throughout strongly echoing works by one and the other. The first section of the exhibition unfolds around two sculptures, one by Modigliani and the other by Zadkine. The resemblance is striking, even though each artist has his own specific approach to carving stone. In the same section, visitors will also appreciate the undeniable visual affinities between a Modigliani’s painting of a Woman with a velvet ribbon, and a head carved in stone by Zadkine, with their strongly echoing mask-like features and almond-shaped eyes.

Can you explain the title of the exhibition? Modigliani Zadkine, an interrupted friendship.

Modigliani and Zadkine’s friendship broke up several times. First, there was the war in 1914, during which Zadkine enrolled, whereas Modigliani, who tried to enroll as well but was reformed due to his poor health condition, stayed back in Paris. They met again when Zadkine returned from the front in 1917, after being wounded in a gas attack, but Zadkine seems to have been a bit spiteful of his friend’s gaining recognition then as a painter and not as a sculptor. And then of course their friendship came to an abrupt and definitive end with Modigliani’s untimely death at the age of 35, in January 1920.

For what reason would you recommend an enthusiast to visit the exhibition?

The last section of the exhibition is probably the most striking, because it’s offers a special insight into a grand project Modigliani designed, a temple dedicated to mankind and to love. For the time of the exhibition, Zadkine’s former studio has been transformed into such a temple, featuring Modigliani’s caryatid drawings – which are remarkable pieces – along with the caryatids Zadkine made in wood and stone, as counterparts. The space in the studio is amazing, and we have planned special candlelit (with imitation candles of course !) night tours, to revive the atmosphere of mystery and sacredness that probably filled the artists’ respective studios. 

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