Ibram Lassaw

Ibram Lassaw (1913–2003) was a Russian-American sculptor, known for non-objective construction in brazed metals.

Ibram Lassaw
Ibram Lassaw and Charles C. Withers, 1955 Sep 13 / unidentified photographer. American Federation of Arts records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.
Born1913 (1913)
Alexandria, Egypt
Died2003 (2004)
NationalityAmerican
EducationThe Clay Club, City College of New York, Beaux-Arts Institute of Design
Known forSculpture
MovementAbstract Expressionism

Biography

Lassaw was born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Russian émigré parents, he went to the U.S. in 1921. His family settled in Brooklyn, New York. He became a US citizen in 1928. He first studied sculpture in 1926 at the Clay Club and later at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in New York. He made abstract paintings and drawings influenced by Kandinsky, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and other artists. He also attended the City College of New York.[1]

Influenced by his study of art history and readings in European art magazines, Lassaw began to make sculpture in the late 1920s. He was among the "small group of artists committed themselves to abstract art during the 1930s."[2] In his work, Ibram Lassaw "replaced the monolithic solidity of cast metal with open-space constructions obtained by welding."[3]

During the mid-1930s, Lassaw worked briefly for the Public Works of Art Project cleaning sculptural monuments around New York City. He subsequently joined the WPA as a teacher and sculptor until he was drafted into the army in 1942. Lassaw's contribution to the advancement of sculptural abstraction went beyond mere formal innovation; his promotion of modernist styles during the 1930s did much to insure the growth of abstract art in the United States. He was one of the founding members of the American Abstract Artists group,[4] and served as president of the American Abstract Artists organization from 1946 to 1949.[1]

Lassaw is a sculptor who was a part of the New York School of Abstract expressionism during the 1940s and 1950s. Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, James Brooks, John Ferren, Willem de Kooning, and several other artists like Lassaw spent summers on the Southern Shore of Long Island. Lassaw spent summers on Long Island from 1955 until he moved there permanently in 1963.

His work has been exhibited in galleries, including the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York City and Harmon Meek Gallery in Naples, Florida.[5][6]

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See also

Sources

References
  1. Philips, Lisa. The Third Dimension: Sculpture of the New York School. Whitney Museum of American Art, 1984, p. 76.
  2. The American Century: Art & Culture 1900–1950 p. 284
  3. The American Century: Art & Culture 1900–1950 p. 289
  4. Gregory Gilbert, "Ibram Lassaw," in Beyond the Plane, American Constructions 1930–1965, exhibition catalogue, ed. Jennifer Toher (Trenton, NJ: New Jersey State Museum, 1983), 71.
  5. "Ibram Lassaw". Anita Shapolsky Gallery. Archived from the original on April 19, 2015.
  6. "Artworks by Ibram Lassaw". artnet.com.
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