Jacques Lipchitz. the expressionist sculptor who belonged to the avant garde of 20th century artists that included Pablo Picasso, Juan Gris and Modigliani, was buried yesterday at the Har Hamenuhot (Mt. of Rest) Cemetery outside Jerusalem. Mr. Lipchitz died in Capri, Italy, of a heart attack Saturday at the age of 82. His body was flown to Israel for burial.
His funeral was conducted according to the rites of the Lubavitcher Hasidim of which the artist became a follower 15 years ago. At the request of his widow only the closest family and friends attended the services. These included some 50 Lubavitcher Hasidim representing Rabbi Menachem M. Schneer sohn, of Brooklyn, NY, leader of the world-wide Lubavitcher movement. Mayor Teddy Kollek of Jerusalem delivered a brief eulogy.
Born Chaim Jacob Lipchitz in Lithuania, the artist came to Paris at the age of 18 and worked with such masters as Modigliani, Picasso, Matisse and Juan Gris. When the Nazis occupied France in 1940 he fled to the United States, arriving in New York with $20 in his pocket. He established his home at Hastings-on-the-Hudson, NY and acquired U.S. citizenship in 1958.
HAILED AS LEADER OF NEW ART FORM
Art critics described Mr.Lipchitz’s work as “lyrical Cubism,” a mixture of the “rational and Baroque.” According to the French daily, Le Monde, “that synthesis was one which no other artist achieved.” From the 1930s on, Mr, Lipchitz’s work increasingly reflected an interest in themes of the Bible and mythology. “Prometheus Strangling the Vulture,” created for the International Exhibition of 1937 in Paris, was considered typical of this period.
Mr. Lipchitz, whose works are exhibited in major museums around the world, willed 300 original plaster models to the Jerusalem Museum of Art. At the time of his death he was reportedly working on a number of molds for presentation to the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
A Lubavitcher source said the sculptor became a disciple of the Lubavitcher Rebbe some 15 years ago when he was ill with cancer. He credited his recovery to the Rebbe. (The Washington Post, in an editorial today, described Lipchitz as an artist who “rendered the reduction of nature’s organic forms into its essential intellectual geometry.”)
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