Jacob Lipkin (1909–1996), was an American sculptor.
Jacob Lipkin, an American sculptor, was born April 19, 1909 on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Lipkin carved in stone and wood with a humanist's sensibility, often using "creatures and people from mythology to convey the harmonious connection between Man and Nature" (from a quote by Koren Der Harootian, in the Village Art Center Catalog, circa 1954).Village Art Center Catalog, circa 1954, "Through direct carving and an economy of statement dictated by the hard materials, Jacob Lipkin has conveyed a humanist's statement of the spiritual unity of man and animal. The inner vitality of his forms and the elimination of non-essential detail have revealed the essence of the animal and thereby an affirmation of life in harmony with nature. In the studies of children we see a sensitive sympathy for the child's moods and grasp of the child's true significance, that he is 'father to the man.' Jacob Lipkin's sculpture is basically the concrete representation of a faith in man who can be and integral and harmonious part of his environment." quote by Koren der Harootian
Between 1937 and 1940, Lipkin studied art in Manhattan at the Educational alliance, The Cooper Union, Art Students League of New York and Leonardo da Vinci Art School.Provident National Bank Catalog, Gallery Exhibition "Stone & Wood Carvings, Drawings & Reliefs by The Sculptor Jacob Lipkin" March 25 to May 24, 1968Photograph is in the Daily News with caption "Prophet was brought to city along with other Lipkin sculptures by Providence National Bank, which will display 40 smaller works at bank offices." By 1940, Lipkin devoted himself fully to sculpting. He worked and lived his last 40 years in the modest home, studio, and sculpture garden he had built himself in the Township of Babylon, N.Y.
Lipkin's work was exhibited with artists including Chaim Gross, Louise Bourgeois, Louise Nevelson, and Isamu Noguchi in the 1940s to 1950s including at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Providence Art Club, New Jersey Society of Painters and showings at public museums including the Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
In the 1950s Lipkin was an instructor at the North Shore Community College and associate professor at Silvermine College. Lipkin received numerous awards, including the New Jersey Society of Painters and Sculptors Medal of Honor in 1958 and First Prize in 1964 and Silvermine Guild Award.
He also exhibited widely during the 1950s with a variety of artists. Over nearly four decades he participated in over 70 group exhibitions and had 21 one-man shows.
In 1968 Lipkin had a 30-year retrospective in Philadelphia at the grand lobby of the Provident National Bank where he exhibited 40 sculptures. Lipkin's Socrates, The Prophet, 1968, was originally installed by the Provident National Bank at JFK Plaza and now stands in Cret Park at Ben Franklin Parkway. This eight foot tall, 13,000-pound sculpture of Socrates stands in Philadelphia amongst other famous artists including Henry Moore, Jacob Epstein and Jacques Lipchitz.
Jacob Lipkin's work resides in private and public collections and museums. His sculptures in museums include the Head of a Pony, 1947, in grey granite at The Fogg Museum at Harvard; the Camel, 1947, in white marble, and the Ram, 1945, in sandstone and lead at The Parrish Art Museum on Southampton, New York; the Ape, 1953, in the collection of the Philadelphia Zoo; Head of the Prophet Isaiah 1952 at the Jewish Museum in New York City; the Pelican circa 1954 at the St. Lawrence University, Richard F. Brush Art Gallery, Canton, New York; Bear Cub 1966 at the Smithsonian Institution, National Zoological Park, Washington, D.C; and several works at the National Gallery of Art - see his artist information page for photos of the works there. His work at the Gallery contributed to the Index of American Design.
Lipkin's other work residing at museums include The East River, N.Y.C. painting 1928 at the Luce Center of the New-York Historical Society; John Brown bas-relief at the Howard University Law Society in Washington, D.C.;
and a sculpture at the Maritime Industry Museum, Fort Schuyler, N.Y.;
Phil Katzman independent filmmaker and associate professor of radio, television, film at Hofstra University, documented Lipkin's life and work in his film, From Stone: Jacob Lipkin, an American Sculptor, which aired on PBS in 1988.
Lipkin told Kermit Jaediker, a reporter at the New York Daily News in January 1960, “Life is funny. All my life I have been banging away to get into the hall of fame. One day I fail to pay a bill, and fame sneaks in my back door.” Jacob Lipkin died of cancer at the age of 87 years on April 27, 1996, in West Babylon, New York.
Early life
Jacob Lipkin was born on April 19, 1909, to Russian-Jewish (now Ukrainian) immigrants. His parents immigrated to the United States during the period between 1890 and 1910 that saw more than 10 million European people come to the U.S.in the Settlement movement. According to Richard Rivera, Lipkin's biographer, Jacob was the 15th of 16 children and as the first of his family to be born in America "became a product of the Lower East Side". Jacob grew up in a community where social organizations such as The Educational Alliance, the Henry Street Settlement, and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) had been formed to facilitate the transition of “Americanization.”
In the Newsday article, “A Sculptor's Love, Art Come Home,” by Samson Mulugeta, Rivera states that, “When he [Jacob] was 5, his father died, and he was sent to an orphanage.” Lipkin's father had worked for the New York Edison Company (previously Consolidated Edison), and although Jacob had adult siblings he was placed into an orphanage by his mother where he remained for three years.
He was liberated from the orphanage three years later by one of his brothers seeking recusal from the military service in the Pancho Villa Expedition of 1917.
Jacob Lipkin was apprenticed to a blacksmith at the age of 12. Four years later as a 16-year-old living on Manhattan's South Street, he lied about his age and sailed out on one of the last of commercial sailing ships—a 3-mast wooden barquentine—as a merchant seaman. For 11 years, Lipkin sailed the world aboard cargo ships and oil tankers before once again making New York City and the Lower East Side his home.
Lipkin was described in the Newsday article “One Man's Poetry,” as a man “of immense curiosity” and “self-educated.” He was a admirer of John Brown (abolitionist), and his avowed emphasis on racial equality.
Artistic pursuits and family life
Jacob Lipkin returned home to New York City in 1936, and by 1937 he was studying art at The Cooper Union, and the Leonardo da Vinci Art School, where he learned carving in stone and wood in the evenings.
From 1932 to 1948 Jacob Lipkin created a number of oil paintings of New York scenes, a self-portrait, and wood sculptures, including Head of a Woman No. 1, 1940, in oak, and Pioneer (Head of Woman), 1950, Lignum Vitae, 19 inches high, in the collection of the New Jersey State Museum; Owl, 1948, in lignum vitae, 21.5 x 8 x 10 inches; and Shark, 1948, in Teakwood.
During the late 1930s at a party, Lipkin met Dorothy Koegan, his future wife. As stated by Estelle Lander in the January 4, 1990 Newsday article “One Man's Poetry,” Lipkin “sat next to her because a beautiful blonde ‘in good shape’ sat on the other side. But [the blonde] was stupid, Dorothy Lipkin said, so he turned to me. Then he found out I had hidden beauty.” They married and had a daughter, Laura, and later, a son, Carl.
At first they lived at an apartment on 17th Street in Manhattan, and later rented a street-level storefront at St. Mark's Place, which Lipkin converted into an apartment and its front section doubled as a gallery. As quoted from the article “Capturing a Sculptor in Stone and Film” by Barbara Delatiner, Sunday New York Times, April 10, 1988, Lipkin said, “In the beginning I sold here and there. But the more immersed I became in morals and mores I realized I couldn't sell my work. The thought of selling was detrimental,” Lipkin said, “it corrodes the creative spirit. I have this need for freedom. And money is a threat as well as a grace. I need freedom to create my works of art.” And so he preferred to donate his work to public institutions to be enjoyed by the public.
To support the family Jacob taught fine art or cleaned cellars, or hauled loads in his 1-ton truck and Dorothy worked as a secretary. “When there was money, we ate better. When there was no money we ate Chinese-style, with a lot of rice and vegetables,” Dorothy is quoted as saying in the January 4, 1990 Newsday article "One Man's Poetry" by Estelle Lander.
During the 1950s Jacob Lipkin was elected a signature member of the Knickerbocker Artists, contributing to many exhibitions on the Lower East Side and throughout the New York City area, as mentioned in two New York Times exhibition reviews “About Art and Artists” by Howard Devree. In the November 2, 1954 article with subhead “Sculpture by Moore at Valentin's Includes Piece Spurned on Madison Avenue” Devree notes that the “show at the Riverside Museum by the Brooklyn Society of Artists and “Prizes ... In the sculpture awards went to Joseph Konzal and Jacob Lipkin ...” and in his May 5, 1954 article with subhead “Five Sculpture Shows Offered in Week—Valentin Assembles Rodin Exhibition” Devree says, “The third group exhibition event is a show of work in a variety of materials by ten invited sculptors at the Studio Gallery of Marcia Clapp, 170 East Seventy-fifth Street. Outstanding are a granite head, Prophet, by Jane Wasey and Ape, a squat powerful figure in the same intractable material, by Jacob Lipkin, who is also represented by a befittingly stolid Turtle in green stone, and the highly stylized figure, Echo, by Koren der Harootian in imperial marble.”
On at least three occasions in the 1960s his sculptures were used as illustrations in The New York Times book review section. Sculptures included the Whale, in walnut, 1946, September 9, 1962, in the edition; the Seahorse, 16 inches high in African walnut, 1950, in the August 8, 1966, edition; and the Adolescent, 40 x 15.5 x 9 inches in rosewood, 1956, in the February 16, 1958, edition.
Caster controversy and The New York Times coverage
On January 7, 1960, the front page of the New York Times ran the story: “Sculptor, a Barter Artist, Blocks Sale of Work to Pay a $153 Debt” written by Ira Henry Freeman. Jacob Lipkin decided in 1959 that he needed an industrial-grade dolly to wheel around his thousand-pound marble blocks. He went to Eugene Gomes, owner of the Kilian Caster Sales Company, promising to give him a work of art, a sculpture, in exchange for the “smooth-turning noiseless heavy pneumatic tires required” (from New York Daily News article, Man Who Hates Money). When Mr. Gomes, who also owned an art gallery in Westchester, New York, came eagerly to the St. Mark's studio to claim a sculpture of his choosing as payment he found that Lipkin did not do abstract art. Jacob Lipkin offered him a four-foot female nude carved in rosewood whose raw material alone had been worth $300. He also showed Gomes a ram's head in travertine marble, but Gomes would not accept it, leaving instead empty-handed.
In the New York Times article, Lipkin is quoted as saying, “Is life abstract? Is an auction sale abstract, a toothache abstract, children maimed by war abstract? Is Love abstract ... Is it abstract to lie on the bowsprit of a 250-foot schooner under full sail—as I have done—and watch the whale leap out of the Pacific? My works assert the goodness of life. Abstract art is the fad of tasteless tastemakers who hate humanity and nature. It will pass in time.”