"Tree of Life" by Jacques Lipchitz (Lithuania/France, 1891-1973), original lithograph, signed in pencil, numbered 71/100, circa 1960s-1970s, loose - 26” x 40”
 
Jacques Lipchitz was born in Lithuania in 1889. He studied at the Vilnius Art School. Under the influence of his father he studied engineering, but soon after, supported by his mother he moved to Paris in 1909 to study at the École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian. It was in Paris, in the artistic communities of Montmartre and Montparnasse, that he joined a group of artists that included Juan Gris and Pablo Picasso. His friend, Amedeo Modigliani, painted a portriat of him and wife, Berthe Lipchitz. He also joined the group Esprit Nouveau. Living in this environment, Lipchitz soon began to create Cubist sculpture. In 1912 he exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d'Automne with his first solo show held at Léonce Rosenberg's Galerie L'Effort Moderne in Paris in 1920. With the German occupation of France during World War II, and the deportation of Jews to the Nazi death camps, Lipchitz had to flee France to the United States. There, he eventually settled in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York, where he continued to create. In 1954 a Lipchitz retrospective traveled from The Museum of Modern Art in New York to the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and The Cleveland Museum of Art.