Timeline

Morice Lipsi 1898 Pabianice (Poland) – 1986 Küsnacht (Switzerland). During the period following the Second World War Lipsi became one of the renown French sculptors of monumental abstract stone sculptures. In 1912 Israel Moszek Lipchytz, fourteen, left his Polish homeland to join his brother Samuel Lipchytz (1875-1942), Paris. He settled at the artist’s residence ''La Ruche'', alongside Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Chaim Soutine, Amedeo Modigliani, Ossip Zadkine and Guillaume Apollinaire. He learned from his brother, how to carve ivory, based on techniques of Art Déco. He briefly attended École des Beaux-Arts in 1926. He began to experiment by himself with sculpture, developing a style of his own. After sitting with Jacques Lipchitz, who also resided at ”La Ruche”, he decided to change his name to Morice Lipsi, in order to avoid confusion between the two sculptors. 1922: first solo exhibition of ivory sculptures at the Galerie Hébrard in Paris. Further exhibitions soon followed in Paris at the Galerie d’art contemporain (1927). In 1931 he took part in the international sculpture exhibition at the Kunsthaus Zürich. For the Paris World’s Fair in 1937 Lipsi was commissioned to design a gable relief above the Pont Alexandre III entrance portal, and a relief in the Pavilion of the Architects Club. 1940 Lipsi fled to Charente. 1942 he reached Geneva, where he frequently met his friend Giacometti. In 1945 we find Lipsi in the Kunsthalle Bern, alongside Marino Marini, Germaine Richier and Fritz Wotruba. Back in Paris soon after the war Lipsi’s oeuvre took a turn towards abstraction. For his increasingly abstract stone figures he used the direct carving process. 1954 Lipsi joined groupe espace with Victor Vasaréli and Fernand Léger. From 1955 he was particularly interested in working in lava stone. During the following years he was much in demand as a sculptural designer for public spaces, with commissions throughout France, a state gift from France to Iceland, and purchases from Germany and Israel. 1959: Documenta II in Kassel and solo exhibition Paris Galerie Denise René. 1963, 1964 and 1967 Lipsi took part in International Sculpture Symposia in Japan, Slovakia and France (as president). This period culminated in the works Océanique I and the 12 m high Ouverture dans l’espace, prominently placed in the public space during the Olympic Games in Tokyo 1964 and Grenoble in 1968. During this period Lipsi presided the sculptural section of “Salon des réalités nouvelles” Paris Some museums showing works by Morice Lipsi: Antwerp: Middelheim Museum, Bielefeld: Kunsthalle, Museum of Grenoble, Frankfurt: Museum für Moderne Kunst, Jerusalem: Israel Museum, Mannheim: Kunsthalle, Museum of the City of Mexico, Pari:, Centre Pompidou, Vienna: Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig.